This was frightening. Most of all, she felt the burden of moving to somewhere she had nobody to rely on. Her skin was cold with anxiety, her eyes couldn't relax in place and would frenetically look at the most minor of movements they could catch. She took a deep breath, and looked back at the streets, thinking about giving up for the second time.
“Spit on their faces”, she whispered to herself and walked further inside the building. The guards stared at her, seeming to be used to the sight. Akka looked back into their eyes feeling the intimidation. Back home she was used to seeing this look coming from men, but now she started to learn that The Knights did not drain their power exactly from tradition or false gender hierarchies, but from force, law and order. They asked her what was her business there, and her voice failed back into her throat, falling, swinging down into silence as their faces awaited for a response, their expression wondering if she was unable to think. And for a moment she was.
“I intend to apply for a job”, Akka replied with the vibrating voice of anxiety. He pointed inside, mumbling something through his helmet she couldn't even understand, having to focus on one thing only: getting off of their sight. Would it be the same with anyone else? The weight of the knight's iron fist on her back was holding her down already, this was a drastic change from life back in the horseclans. It took a moment before Akka realized she was thinking through the dangers of the new town staring at the pile of papers, one of which she should fill in.
“I hate this language”, Akka told the little paper when reading the lines and discovering what it is that she had to write down. The language came to her as something foreign, ever-present through her past years, spoken here and there, but always foreign.
“Akka Bowtoucher from Endrykas...”, she said while writing down that name in what she later came to call “the knights' language”.
“That's my name”, Akka said, as if she wanted to be sure that last information was relevant.
“At least it's what I told everyone else since leaving Cyphrus” In the next field, the knights wrote “race”. For a moment, she stopped. Her mind, as if out of control, dived into the grass sea. The horses were running around, and every soul she saw was a horseman or a horsewoman. The clanspeople, together, her race. They look like me, and share with her a certain view of the world, and how to run it. They disagreed, but knew that every being that walks and swims on Semele is valuable. It is upon the end of these thoughts that she realized her eyes were closed, and one of the guards was looking at her with a weird look in his face.
“Race”, Akka repeats to herself while writing down she's a human, a drykas, and a smile took the left corner of her mouth as those letters were drawn against the knights' paper.
Drykas. Oh, how I miss the Migrating City...Last words written, she wondered to herself why they would like to know her race when hiring for a job.
“Why is this relevant? To discriminate us?”, she pondered in a very quiet whisper and moved to fill in the age field.
“Relevant skills...”, her lips accompanied her as she read, thinking about what it is that she knew exactly.
“It is not too much, not as much as grandma, but I know how to make our longbows very well..., Akka thought out loud as she put in her talents and how much being a bowyer meant to her. For a second, her eyes closed again, and the face of her grandmother took her head completely elsewhere.
Oh, grandma, if you didn't taught me... I will never stop making bows, I swear to you. She remembered, and wouldn't ever forget to her last days, that there is no archer if there is no bowyer.
“There is no difference between an archer and a bowyer, any distance is a shortcoming”, she said quoting her grandmother as she filled in a line saying who taught her, and how much she knew, how good she was — or so Akka thought, as if she could write such intense quantity in a piece of paper that small.
“Preferred occupation... Bowyer, of course!”, she said scribbled down as the paper learned her intentions. Finally, she's asked how long she expected to stay.
“I'll be where the struggle takes me... — she replied looking at the blank space eager to be filled —
but I will stay here permanently so long as I have no good reason to leave.” She stared at the filled piece of paper and read it again. Was that the start of it? Would she be a bowyer in the hands of those knights? Would she be able to have her own shop and work alone? How much freedom would she be given? She had before seen the face of slavery, and at that moment was thinking she was always ready to escape, at any moment, from anything. Very nervous, she used to think of an escape plan from every single building she walked in.
Her head moved upwards slowly, and she faced Trega smiling at her. Her face was washed with knowledge, and Akka respected her years when looking at her hair. The horsewoman's knees were slightly unstable as she walked towards the secretary's table and laid the paper in front of her hands.
“I'm looking for a job”, she said with her voice throwing the words out more naturally than to the two men at the door. As she looked into her eyes, Akka tried to pull the empathy for her fellow kind, a connection never talked about openly, but that back in her family was very important. They were both women, and that meant something.
After speaking to her and turning in the paper, Akka smiled and tried to nod, although to her perception it later seemed more like an unreadable gesture. Her hands were wet as she thanked Trega and walked towards the door. Leaving is always more comfortable than coming in. As with horses, they always know better the way back, they know where home is, and they know when you are leaving. It means you are ready to go, and that what you came to do is finished. Even in the harshest situations, where leaving is still an escape job, the feeling of a job almost finished is always felt warmly, the feeling of going home — unfortunately to her heart, that was not Akka's current destiny.
Name: Akka Bowtoucher from Endrykas
Race: I am a human, a drykas
Age: 28
Relevant Skills: I come from a family of bowyers, it is a tradition and a matter of honor to us. I learned with my grandmother, the most skilled of her time.
Preferred Occupation: Bowyer/Fletcher
Expected Stay In Syliras: Permanent.
by Aeria on April 6th, 2014, 1:55 pm 
