Closed Seeking the Tall Grasses (Shahar)

[Waisana]

Humiliation burned in her face and in her eyes as Shahar approached her. Unlike her he had managed to stay upon his Strider. It shouldn't have been such a difficult thing to do, to stay on a horse but then Waisana was good at accidents. She'd always been good at falling over her own feet, or over ropes that held tents in place, or falling off horses. Place a patient's care into her hands and nothing would go wrong, stick her pride in her hands and she'd succeed in shattering it into a thousand little pieces.

The man had appeared quickly without her seeing his approach so when Drusine had bolted he must have followed. Her eyes flickered up to the man and away, lowering to his stallion instead. The horse was giddy. Perhaps his own Strider had gone off without his permission as well but unlike her, he'd been able to regain control. The teen signed wait to her guide as she set about doing a quick check of her body. Searching for an injury was something that she could do at least, even if she couldn't stay on her own Strider's back. One leg was moved back and forth as she tested for anything out of the ordinary. There was pain all right but she wasn't sure if it was serious or just bruising. Placing her hands beneath her, she pushed herself up and probed along the base of her spine. The teen knew of someone who had bruised the odd shaped bone at the bottom of their spine before and it had been an agonising injury she knew.

The teen bent at the hips, seeing if any lancing pain originated from that area but it just seemed to be bruising on her buttocks and thighs. Nothing too serious, she didn't think. If it turned out to be otherwise, she'd be aware of it quickly enough. "Fine. Not much harm. Bruises." The girl's face was a grimace as she regarded the man, an expression that changed to one of irritation as a horse's nose appeared at her shoulder. She stepped away, turning to face her Strider.

Bad, the sign came quickly, almost violently as she turned a glare on the beast. The mare's ears flattened and her head bowed. A snort came from the horse before she took a step towards the Opal girl and nudged her with her nose. Waisana's arms had crossed over her chest, her nostrils flaring in irritation as she continued her glare. Another nudge and the glare began to falter. Nudge. "Oh don't look at me like that! You're sorry, I get it!" A hand raised to pat the beast, a placating gesture. The horse reversed a step or two and then changed to a position that allowed mounting. She became conscious of Shahar again as she prepared to launch herself onto the horse's back and she became paranoid. You're going to fall and make a fool of yourself again. Vault right over Drusine probably, she thought as she turned a nervous gaze to the man. Sometimes she really didn't help herself.

Steps backwards to allow a bit of a run up and then the girl was off, jumping and scrabbling for a hold on the yvas. She managed it, her mounting clumsy and most likely funny to watch but managed all the same. The healer blew a loose strand of hair from her forehead, wondering idly how it had gotten there, before turning her eyes to Shahar once more. "Sorry. I heal more than I ride." As if that fact wasn't obvious. She cleared her throat awkwardly, straightening herself on her mount's back in an effort to regain some dignity in her demeanour. "Chulaka... I don't know the name but I might know the plant. Anything you can bring me to would work. Before, what would you have said? To the middle?" Her head jerked in the direction of what she assumed was the Sea's centre. She was a little disorientated but at least she knew to jerk her head in a direction that indicated away from the city.

"I can go far. I won't fall again." Promise, the sign came. It was a promise that she was determined to keep and she was sure that Drusine wouldn't go mad again. Fairly sure.

[Colt]

Her face had gone a peculiar red color, and she did not respond immediately. Instead, the Opal woman set about to examining herself, presumably wondering the same thing Shahar had asked. She moved joints and looked over skin, stood, and moved some more.

“Fine,” she finally said. “Not much harm. Bruises.”

Good, relief.

The Opal’s horse then found it prudent to reappear at her rider’s shoulder, expression one that could only be interpreted as contriteness, although the woman herself seemed too irritable to forgive so easily, at least for the few moments before she gave in to the horse’s imploring looks and begrudgingly accepted the wordless apology with a pat.

She had remounted within a few moments, and Shahar automatically shifted to readiness.

"Sorry. I heal more than I ride."

Unimportant, good enough.

"Chulaka... I don't know the name but I might know the plant. Anything you can bring me to would work. Before, what would you have said? To the middle? I can go far. I won't fall again."

Shahar nodded, but when he gestured in response it wasn’t towards the center, as she had done.

North best, he said, unaware that his bluntness might be mistaken for rudeness. Center thick, yes, but dry. North, ocean, more water, wind, and so more plants.

[Waisana]

Shahar was clearly unimpressed with the excuses that she put forward. He was short with her, blunt. The girl wondered how she must seem in his eyes, a failure of a Drykas, one who could not stay astride her horse. Pathetic. The teen was briefly downhearted, head bowing slightly. She would prove herself to be capable. She would make a new impression on him, better than the first one. Her chin came up, head held high as she became determined to prevent Shahar from thinking her to be some silly little girl.

He didn't seem to think that her suggestion was much good, offering an alternative instead. The man was her guide and he had a better understanding of the Sea of Grass than her, which was why she'd employed his services. If he said that one place was better than what she'd suggested then the Opal girl would trust his judgement. He was supposed to know better than she did, in this matter at least, so Waisana wasn't going to take it as a personal affront. What he said made sense as well. She smiled, nodding. Agreement, she signed. So it was north that they'd be heading. His gesture had indicated the correct direction, a direction that she wouldn't have been able to determine herself.

Her foot moved back a bit, hips turning in the direction that she wanted Drusine to go towards, the rest of her body turning that way accordingly as well. The Strider changed her position so that she was facing northwards and urged the horse into a walk. The man could set the pace as he saw fit but she could at least get them started. Shahar would have no trouble catching up to her or keeping up to her and they travelled at a speed that permitted communication between them although she was loathe to relinquish complete hold upon the yvas except where absolutely necessary.

"Do you go this way often? You hunt, don't you? Is there good hunting this way? The way we go."

[Colt]

Her eyes fell for a moment––although Shahar wasn’t sure why––but in another moment they returned to him with vigor, set in a determined face as if the woman had just resolved to do something. Shahar tilted his head, but didn’t dwell on it; her thoughts were not his business.

She turned north at his suggestion, as did Akaidras, and soon enough they were moving. They remained at an easy walk, one that Shahar didn’t mind; it was actually helpful, in a way, as he could peer at the ground around them to see if there was any chulaka he could show her. Perhaps they could bring some along on their journey to eat. He was a bit hungry, and he rather liked chulaka. Maybe he could even bring some home with him when their business was done.

As he watched the earth around them, he made sure to keep a mental tally of the distance they were travelling; a half-hour’s canter was the usual distance he traveled from camp, although at the rate they were going it would take significantly longer to reach that limit. That was alright, though; it was the distance that mattered to him, not the time itself.

The woman’s questions brought him back to attention. He contemplated each, but they were met with curt, to-the-point responses that were not exactly polite, but weren’t particularly impolite, either.

“Do you go this way often?”

No.

“You hunt, don’t you?”

Yes.

“Is there good hunting this way? The way we go.”

Probably.

In all honesty, he found her questions a tad confusing. Was she a hunter, then? Was that why she wanted to know? People from the Opal Clan didn’t often take up the profession, to his knowledge. It was an odd set of questions, to be sure, but then again, Shahar wasn’t one of the Opal Clan. They might have hunters amongst their ranks. And this woman could be one of them; he didn’t know. Giving himself a mental shake, Shahar let the oddity lie; if she had more questions about hunting, he would answer them, but until then he would keep looking for chulaka and places that would most likely have good plants.

[Waisana]

It was no easy thing to try to squeeze conversation out of the man. He seemed to have no desire to respond with more than one word at a time. She'd only been trying to help pass the time in something other than silence but apparently the man didn't want to talk. It left her at a loss of what to do. If Shahar didn't want to talk to her then there was nothing that Waisana could do about it. Maybe she just wasn't asking the right questions. If the right questions were asked then he might open up a bit more. Or maybe she should tell him a bit about herself, except that that wouldn't be a very long conversation either. She settled on trying to ask him more questions, ones that couldn't be answered so simply.

"What dangers are there out here?" she asked. There was no way that he could give a simple answer to that. At the very least a few words could be pulled out of him but she could always follow it up with more questions. It'd still be a fairly one sided conversation for the Opal teen and she didn't want to irritate the man if she could help it. There was no way that she could ride around with him for the day in relative silence though, she'd go mad with lack of interaction. "Why haven't you gone this way before? Is it dangerous?" The girl released the yvas for a moment to sign her curiosity, keeping herself steady with her legs. Her Strider wasn't moving too fast so there was no real danger of her falling off again unless the horse took another fit of madness and decided to go for a race.

Her hands gestured her exasperation before she ploughed into a better way of making sure the man talked. "Do you not want to talk to me? I can be quiet if you want. Thought talking would be nice." The young woman shrugged and dropped her gaze to Drusine's mane. If the man didn't want to talk to her then she could always just count how many hairs made up her Strider's mane. That would be about as exciting as this journey was likely to be if she had a silent companion. The scenery wasn't going to change much anyway, at least it never appeared to do so in her eyes. There was just blade after blade of grass and there was earth beneath the grass. There was sky over it all with clouds in it on occasion and sometimes there were birds. That was how the Sea of Grass seemed to her every time she looked out into it from the confines of Endrykas or when the city moved. There was no excitement in it for her and the girl couldn't understand why her guide seemed so indisposed to talk.

As she waited on a possible response from her companion Waisana allowed her thoughts to drift to what she sort of herbs she might find out when they finally got to wherever they were going and what use they could be put to. She also tried to remember if the term chulaka was familiar to her and if so where she'd heard it before.

[Colt]

He had answered her questions as simply as he could, but they seemed to leave the woman… unsatisfied. In due course, she was continuing on with more questions.

“What dangers are there out here?” she asked.

That, at least, seemed to be less random than most of her other inquiries, and Shahar did his best to answer helpfully.

Dangers many, he said. Lions, glassbeaks worst, but they don’t hunt right now. Might see others, smaller, coyotes or hyenas, but less dangerous. We stay careful, we stay safe.

The hunter gave her the information he thought she would find most helpful, because he could think of no other reason for her to ask other than out of genuine concern for their safety.

“Why haven’t you gone this way before? Is it dangerous?”

Dangerous, no more than anywhere else. Same as rest of this: he gestured across the vastness of the Sea of Grass. This Opal clanswoman certainly seemed like the worrying sort, to be asking so many questions about dangers. Shahar mulled over how he might convince her that they would be alright, so far as they didn’t stray too far from the city and kept a watchful eye on the world around them.

"Do you not want to talk to me? I can be quiet if you want. Thought talking would be nice."

Shahar blinked at her. Did he not want to talk to her? Genuine bafflement overtook his posture; he was not a many of many words and he never had been, but it wasn’t as if he avoided talking. Hadn’t the two of them been talking for the last few minutes?

What do you want to talk about? he asked, bemused. To him, talking was a means of communicating information when and where information was needed. If she wanted to talk, he assumed it was because there was information she still needed from him; it didn’t even occur to Shahar that she was asking questions out of a desire to simply stave off silence.

[Waisana]

The dangers were to be expected. Any of the predators he listed could be found anywhere in the Sea of Grass. The only reason that the Drykas did not normally have to put up with them in and around the city or during the seasonal moves was because the Watch dealt with them. It didn't stop them from being elsewhere among the tall grasses but she never had reason to come into contact with them. They seemed a danger that was far away, one that she didn't normally have to come into contact with but that didn't mean that she was stupid enough to not be afraid about encountering them. The teen swallowed but nodded in answer, the pink flush from the ride draining from her cheeks. If anything attacked them and anything should happen that stopped them outrunning danger then she hoped that the man could protect them both. Waisana had as much of the willingness and ability to hurt another living creature as a newborn foal fresh from its mother's womb.

Asking questions that would draw longer answers didn't have the desired effect. There just seemed to be no way to draw him into conversation. It left her even more dissatisfied as she wondered why she was bothering at all. A child could talk more than Shahar was, could actually exhibit curiosity, something which he seemed to lack. At least he was willing to answer her though. Some words from him were better than none at all. His answers had been blunt and he kept them as short as possible but her frustrated outburst seemed to have had the best impact on him thus far.

It was clear by his tone and his gestures that he was puzzled by her outburst and she was confused by his bewilderment. Did he think that they were holding a conversation? A true conversation rather than the near monologue they were having at present. It wasn't like an interaction between people but similar to how she interacted with her Strider. Shahar could actually speak, he had a tongue but he didn't choose to use it too much. Still if there was a chance to make him speak then the teen would gladly take it. She just needed to find a topic that he would engage with.

"I want you to talk more. What would you talk about? What interests you?" she asked, accompanying her question with a gesture of interest. She really did want to know what his interests were because at least then she'd have an idea what she could say to him. "I heal people. I like medicine and can talk about it. A little about herbs. Maybe... you tell me more about you," the girl suggested, smiling. There could be no short answer to that and maybe Shahar as the subject would make more of a conversation sprout up.

[Colt]

He wasn’t the only one confused––not only was the Opal equally baffled, but she seemed to be baffled by his bafflement, which only baffled him more. What did this woman want from him?

Talking more? That was what she wanted. About what? Shahar’s hands became desperate as he tried to reconcile her request with something he could provide––she wanted to talk. Alright. But what did she want to talk about?

What did he want to talk about? That was a question just as difficult to absorb as the last, even more so to answer. This was her outing, these were her questions, and it didn’t help that she seemed truly interested in any answer he might give when he had no idea how to give her one.

Telling about one’s self. That wasn’t an easy thing to do, either. She was giving him information on her own personality and life, and he listened out of more than politeness––he listened to what she said so that he could give the same information about himself. It was about the only hint he had as to what exactly it was that this woman expected of him.

I hunt, he signed hesitantly. Was that what she was looking for? Didn’t she already know that? I like… wind? And… How in the world could he continue? Shahar was not a complex man, didn’t have complex desires or ambitions; as long as he was safe, warm and with his family he didn’t need anything else. His joys came from simple places, so simple that he couldn’t even comprehend talking about them. What was there to talk about? His hands hovered halfway towards warmth, then shifted into something almost resembling heart or feeling, but uncertainty overtook them and eventually succumbed entirely to give up, I don’t know, what are you asking? Not understand.

This woman’s desires were proving to be incomprehensible.

[Waisana]

The teen's expression twisted in confusion. Did the man not have any knowledge of conversation? It wasn't a dead art, of that she was certain, although perhaps it was something she was capable of due to her line of work. She certainly wondered how such a simple question could baffle a person; it wasn't that perplexing. The girl had no answer for his question though. If he couldn't grasp her meaning from information she'd given about herself then there was nothing she could do for him. Waisana found herself sighing as she considered the man might be a hopeless case. No good would come from trying to talk to him it seemed.

The Opal girl scrutinized him as he seemed to consider her query. Finally, a real answer might come from the man. She could understand that he would take his time; who didn't have their mind go blank when asked to talk about themselves. Waisana had suffered from such lapses in memory herself but certainly could recover faster than Shahar. Clearly struggling, the hunter searched for the appropriate words, any words perhaps, as he formulated a reply. As the answer came, he appeared to seek her approval, as if uncertain that the answer he as giving her was correct.

Give me patience, she prayed silently to no one in particular. Patience was something she was going to need in abundance it seemed. The hunter liked to hunt and even then, he didn't seem confident that he liked it. Did he believe that the healer would dislike such a response? Why was he so hesitant? His every gesture bespoke hesitancy, uncertainty, clear for her eye to see. A feeble attempt was made to expand the obvious interest of hunting but Shahar failed to get very far before giving up, claiming incomprehension.

Waisana's brows knitted together as she gazed pensively at her mare's mane. Perhaps hunters didn't know how to talk. Not in a conversational manner at least. She'd treated plenty of hunters before but they had talked about necessary things like symptoms, things they'd have to do to get better and similar matters pertaining to their health and well-being. Stealth was a pertinent part o hunting, which meant being quiet was vital; perhaps that didn't help matters. Throwing her hands up in a gesture of frustration, an uncommon show of annoyance crept into her mannerisms and tone.

"Oh I give up! I'd get more words out of a stone than you!" she huffed, the mane immediately in front of her becoming tousled by her angry puff of breath. "Do you never..." she paused in search of a word that would make her meaning clear, finally spouting a string of synonyms "... Make conversation, idle talk, chitchat, talk for the sake of talking, gossip, anything!"

Her arms flapped as she came to the end of her rant, the gestures causing her mount to move nervously under her. As far as the horse was concerned, its ride had gone mad.

"Tell me a hunting story," she blurted, her face lighting up in triumph as she came up with the solution. He needed clear purpose to his talk so Waisana would give it to him. "Something unusual or exciting that's happened to you while hunting. Surely you can talk about that."

[Colt]

Abruptly, unexpectedly and infinitely perplexingly, the Opal girl seemed to be even less happy than before.

“Oh, I give up!” she almost-shouted, tossing up her arms. “I’d get more words out of a stone than you!”

She waved her arms about, not gesturing with them, just… fluttering them here and there, like leaves still on the tree in a particularly strong wind. It was a bizarre and unprecedented display, at least as far as he was concerned; never before had he seen anything like it.

“Do you never… make conversation, idle talk, chitchat, talk for the sake of talking, gossip, anything!”

The more words she said, the less sense they made. They buzzed about in his head like flies, unseen and impossible to see; what was she talking about? His body grew steadily more and more uncomprehending; she was asking him for something that seemed impossible to give––talking for the take of talking? But how could someone talk if they didn’t have something to talk about? Just make noises with their mouth? But––how did that––why would they even––he couldn’t even––what was this? He didn’t understand!

“Tell me a hunting story,” she finally concluded, face lighting up. “Something unusual or exciting that’s happened to you while hunting. Surely you can talk about that.”

Finally, an actual thing that she wanted. A hunting story? Shahar had many, and it was a real item that he could impart to her.

A hunting story.

Something unusual.

Something exciting.

Story, past, yes, able to do that. Shahar took a moment to search for one, and picked the first story that came to mind. “My bondmate.” Long ago, meeting, important, fond remembrance. “We met hunting.”