Closed Camaraderie and Competition

[Khida]

Winter 86, 514 AV
afternoon

The season was changing. The rhythm of day and night provided an obvious clue, of course, but it was signs closer to the ground which made the change real: the buds swelling and gaining color on their parent shrubs, the songbirds staking out territories and chorusing warm-up challenges. Little violet flowers had begun to bloom along the Sea's waterways, or at least the one Endrykas was presently settled near. Spring would soon begin -- bringing with it an abundance of new food in the city's markets, and an abundance of prey for the hunters to pursue. It would come none too soon, in Khida's opinion. Winter had its place, but she missed the sun and the warm, the freedom of not blanketing human skin under layer upon confining layer of clothes, the thermals spiraling up into the sky beneath soaring falcon's wings.

Soon, now. Soon the season would turn, and this knowledge had informed the Kelvic's disposition all throughout the day, good humor persisting even in the face of empty traps and empty grass. Her morning hunt met without success today, but soon they would be better. Soon.

Returning to camp when Syna was near the apex of her course, Khida busied herself for some bells with her on-again, off-again project of the season: tailoring that old robe to fit better and have fresh, unfrayed edges. She had done the bottom hem already, but now sat down in the sunlight with an inside-out sleeve draped across her lap, turning it back until the length seemed appropriate. She had learned a bit about tying off her thread, passing it through loops which, pulled tight, would hold the thread against the fabric and keep it from coming loose. Then she began to stitch the folded end to the sleeve, careful to keep the fold from shifting as she turned it. It was easier to keep in place than the hem had been, by virtue of a far smaller radius; one hand could readily manipulate the entirety of the area under work. The repetitive motion -- needle through, over a small distance, needle back, over a small distance -- became tiresome in short order, in no small part because it could never be entirely mindless. If the Kelvic's thoughts wandered, her fingers got pricked.

Khida only made it halfway around the sleeve before her perseverance decided to take a break. Truth be told, she didn't really want to sit and focus on this task. Nor was it an urgent purpose; that would have been cause to finish. Bundling up the cloth and the sewing kit, she conveyed them back to the tent... and took up her bow and its accessories instead. Yes. That was what she would work on this afternoon. Because spring meant better hunting -- and she still needed to be better with the bow, before she could be effective hunting with it.

Armed with renewed purpose, as well as armed with her bow, Khida emerged from the tent and sought out her bondmate. She would go practice at Hunter's Allegiance for perhaps the rest of the afternoon; at the least he needed to know, and maybe he would even want to come.

oocDate is entirely arbitrary. So is the time. If adjustments are needed, just let me know!

Common | Pavi | someone else

[Caelum]

By the time Caelum headed back to camp, he was thoroughly in need of the sunlight on his face. Though the day was pale the light was still enough to ease the aches in his joints and chase the weariness free from his eyes. They were an old amber, rich and alert, unchanging though the approaching spring had begun to turn the colors of him in the same manner fall could alter foliage in the forests at the western edge of Cyphrus. The majority of the morning he had spent in the company of Denhar Tenderbloom, Ankal of the pavilion of the Opal Clan whose purpose it was to run the River Flower and Healing Hoof. Also favored by the Dark Sister, Denhar had called upon the former Ankal to assist him with a set of deliveries. The first was complicated by a double breach and the other boasted of twins. They had come too early and a hasty, surgical delivery was ultimately required to save the lives of both infants along with the mother. Afterwards, Denhar had claimed Caelum to be good luck, and promised his assistance to the ethaefal when it came time to place runaway slaves. He would keep the confidence of his fellow healer. Khida was spied exiting her tent with a bow over her shoulder as Caelum approached his camp. Spring had streaked antique gold, brassy and bright, through winter’s pale brown hair and begun to pale and bright the pine color of his horns to a shade more closely related to new grass complete with a hint of lavender at the bases. He was a sight different from the Drykas man she had met a few days previous, but doubtless both of his faces were familiar by now. He had been roaming through Endrykas, industrious, seeing about all manner of business ranging from purchasing horses to conversations with a few Watch members, the healing tents, and of course the visits to the Stoneshadow pavilion in the Emerald Clan. Those had been the hardest so far. Lillian skipped to a stop behind her father and reached up to grasp a fistful of his pant leg, holding on while she squinted at Khida. “She’s different,” the toddler muttered. It wasn’t suspicious so much as it was infinitely curious. Her hand flew in a quick, hopeful demand, signaling teach and bow. The konti was eager to learn to shoot like her father, but had been deemed too young for it yet. It was a source of frustration. “Maybe,” Caelum agreed, and he reached down to give Lillian’s shoulder a gentle nudge before they aimed themselves on an interception path with Khida. The toddler bounced ahead of him and the healer’s hand rose in fluid, friendly greeting and pardon, and he shaped his words in Pavi too as while it would seem Khida was more fluent in Common, Caelum was in the unique position of perceiving her inclination for Pavi. “Are up going to train or to hunt?”

[Khida]

He felt of preoccupation, and maybe a measure of frustration -- moods which proved to be a product of dealing with the cats, as Khida realized when she finally came into view of the hunter. She studied that tableau for a moment, then retreated, choosing not to risk getting drawn into that tangle.

He could always find her later.

Turning, she found others approaching -- the man who evidently changed with the day, a strangeness the falcon had studied from afar. Though she knew him to be called Caelum by either face, she regarded the tall, sun-gilded, green-horned being with residual caution. She knew him as a neighbor, and yet... he was something strange. The girl-child who blazed the trail ahead of him was odd in her own way, paler than anyone Khida had ever seen before and apparently dotted with scales like a fish's -- but she was a child, did child things, and remained herself through day and night. She was not so strange.

Maybe he was cursed. Weren't there stories about something like that?

He spoke, greeting and query and the soft cousin of apology. Her hands shaped greeting in return, reflexive and reserved yet also true in sentiment. She watched the toddler, whose enthusiasm and effervescence Khida didn't really know what to do with, with some bemusement, even as she responded to the horned man's question. No hunt, she gestured. She employed words more readily than her bondmate, but the silent communication had become ready habit, and here it sufficed to answer.

Her gaze lifted to meet the bright eyes of the man, considering what she saw there. He was surely not Kelvic. He was not one of the snake people. What else changed shape so? You and different and query, she gestured, hands speaking even before her tongue. "You are what?" Khida asked, her attention still plainly directed at his features, curiosity frank and unabashed. She asked no pardon, perceiving no rudeness in either question or study.

Common | Pavi | someone else

[Caelum]

The ethaefal was accustomed to being stared at. There were few of his kind remaining on Mizahar since Ivak was freed from his prison and theirs had already been a small populace. In the eleven years since his fall Caelum himself had only crossed paths with a handful of his brethren, and he had crisscrossed half the continent. For them there was no surety of culture or comfort in society of the like-minded. No home was to be found in the company of another and any sense of familiarity and camaraderie was fleeting. And so it was with regular occasion that Caelum found himself the first sighting of an ethaefal for another, and none of the stares or curiosity were at all alleviated by the links of Nikali’s chain. Quite the opposite. Nonetheless he met the kelvic’s unflinching regard with a smile, the line of his shoulders relaxed and a thumb hooking into the pocket of low slung riding pants. You are what, Khida asked, and he was quiet for a little longer than was necessary or polite while considering his reply. There were a dozen different ways to answer her question, for though he was young in this life he was still a great many things. Everything he’d ever been was ground down to stardust, crunching bitterly between his teeth; but he had built upon those ruins, he had shored up against the darkness. “I'm a worshipper of Syna,” he answered at length, the line of his smile deepening. He could be that again first, he imagined. It was what she was really after. A hand framed a sign that pointed skyward, fingers unfurling to become the radiating bars of the sun. “An ethaefal. I came from the Ukalas, the gods realm, and walk Mizahar now.” “He’s my daddy,” Lillian informed Khida with a look flashing from bright blue eyes. Such things should be obvious in her world. It was the only answer that was worth anything to her. She hopped to a stop in front of the kelvic and lifted her hands so that tiny fingers could tighten the ribbon holding back her hair. “What are you? Will you teach me?” The toddler’s hand flew from the ribbon to swiftly flash signs for bow and hope. Caelum swallowed a sigh, a chuckle stirring near silent in his chest. From behind Lillian, he signed apology to Khida.

[Khida]

He was slow to answer, but Khida did not mind; she could be patient in the hunt for information, too, and his manner suggested he did intend to answer. When his response came, it was with a graceful smile and a gesture towards the sky, towards the light of the sun. He spoke Syna, a name she recognized; and he spoke other words she did not.

The Kelvic puzzled over the words despite the distraction of the child, who added declarations and queries of her own. The child was the smaller concern, in all ways, and the one easier to address; Khida tackled her side of the conversation first. "I am Kelvic," she answered plainly, fingers shaping the phrase she had been given to describe her other form: swift bird that hunts. And she proceeded to turn the question around on the girl, who was just as unfamiliar a breed as the man she named father. "You are?"

And she wanted to be taught the bow. Khida tilted her head and considered the girl, amber eyes blinking pensively. She reached back to take her bow from its case; 'short' though it was, its unstrung length still came out to just a bit greater than the child's height. Too much small, her free hand gestured, as she held the bow up to demonstrate -- but not for the child to take or inspect. Show, not share. "You are little. The bow is big. Others more big. Fish girl big when?" she asked, glancing towards the ethaefal in an invitation for either of them to provide that answer.

In the meantime, Khida put her bow back into its case; it was easier to carry that way, and left her hands free for the ongoing conversation. Though speech itself, she placed on hold for continued thought, returning to the puzzle of the man before her. The puzzle of his words about gods and sun and... the sky? The Kelvic woman looked up towards that clear blue dome, mulling over this idea of sky and place. But she knew the sky, and she knew there were no places in it -- not a one that wasn't ultimately rooted in the ground.

A sense of things unclear filtered into her manner, her fingers hovering on the edge of forming confusion, the sign that was Khida's habitual means of requesting clarification. "There is different... different place... gods? For gods," she appended, recognizing she'd dropped one key word in the struggle to recollect another. "In sky?" That didn't fit with her experience. Yet was also true that the sun, Syna's light, did move through the heavens on a level always above any altitude the falcon had ever flown... perhaps all the gods lived out there. It might explain how they were supposed to know things all over Mizahar...

Foreign as the idea was, Khida would have to go and process it for a while, polishing down the rough edges until it fit itself into her worldview. It was not something she would seek much further detail on now. The other part of Caelum's answer was easier for the Kelvic to absorb; she herself tried, when she remembered, when she understood it was appropriate, to respect a god. But the way he said it... and the fact that he had already described himself as from the Drykas... "The god... respect the god... makes you different?"

Khida didn't want a god to make her different. She was comfortable with herself... and she had a bond she never ever wanted to lose.

Common | Pavi | someone else

[Caelum]

“What kind?” Lillian quickly inquired, webbed fingers echoing Khida’s signs for swift bird. “Do you sing too? Daddy once fixed a mockingbird.” Her arm came out, curving in an echo of the bowl of the sky. Her hands came down, curving together in shapes for sweet and song and sky. Her signs were a truer form of Pavi than where her father’s, at once more modern and less personalized. Now and again, however, she would use something that was an obvious mimic of Caelum’s version of the grasslands language. “I’m a konti. The sea is my sky.” The smile she offered was fresh as daisy. “Khida is a falcon, Lils,” Caelum offered amidst Lillian’s chatter, amiable smile lingering. It kept the corners of sunbright eyes crinkled as he watched Lillian make her study of the bow. He had witnessed Khida transform both to and from her feathered form at various points since their arrival in Endrykas. “The konti,” he provided for Khida, “Are a race of women from an island called Mura in the Eastern Sea. Have you been there? Or anywhere outside of Cyphrus?" Khida might soon realize that Lillian's father was perhaps even more curious than his toddler. He an an inquisitive nature and it was accompanied by an air of genuine and indeed personal interest. The sun shone on everyone, after all. As Lillian sulked over the bow Khida displayed for her being too big and she too small, Caelum stepped forward in order to sign a hopeful request. "May I?" Before reaching for and ultimately being given Khida's bow to hold. As he examined the weapon, running a hand past the bracer and down the lower limb, Lillian rushed around to make a dash for the entrance of their tent. Caelum let her go, knowing well enough what she was going to and not really requiring the trail of her desires to figure it. "Lillian will grow at roughly the same rate a human child grows," he answered Khida. "Though her mental and social maturity may lag a bit behind. The konti are small, light boned and live over two centuries. They're considered physically grown at twenty or so, but they aren't really full adults until they are in their thirties. A bow would be good for Lillian, I think." He paused to consider. "What if I have a shortbow made for her in miniature? The arrows would also have to be custom. Have you ever seen anything like that Khida? Do you know of someone of the Drykas who might be capable of making it?" Khida's shortbow was raised up even as Caelum slid a foot back to angle the direction of his aim towards the Sea of Grass and the rustle of the wind rather than the more populated avenues of Endrykas behind him. His spine lengthened and his shoulders tilted into the proper form to draw an arrow, but he had none and after a few beats relaxed with a smile for Khida. "What do you say we set up some targets? We can practice together with a friendly competition." And he had a yearning to remain out in the sun and the wind, active and purposeful. The restlessness had returned to his bones this season. His eyes searched her and there was a scent, he imagined, like that of incense rising needle straight into an empty sky. That was his sense of her desires and he had a need to blow, soft as whistling back at the birdsong, and disturb that rising smoke so that it took on new shapes, fresh patterns. "The respect of any god will change a person, Khida. Great respect supported by active devotion can change you as dramatically as I have been. I was not born here. I came here from the Ukalas which, yes, is a different place. It's where the gods make their homes though they aren't, in my experience, terribly prone to staying there." For whatever reason, this made him grin. Right about then Lillian came bounding out of the tent hauling her father's quiver of arrows on her back and largely dragging his short bow through the grass. Pride was writ all over her. Looking at this, Caelum added, "I can tell you all about it and how it relates to our world over arrows. Eh?"

[Khida]

Konti. It was an unfamiliar word for an unfamiliar race. Khida filed it away, and was saved from explaining the significance of swift bird by the intercession of the girl's father. She looked towards him as he continued, naming Mura and a sea which was not one she knew. Yes, she answered to the question of travels. "I am... I am from Ahnatep." Though she thought of her birthplace less and less with every season; it seemed almost foreign to consider now, strange to recall she had ever lived in a place not subsumed in grass.

He asked for her bow, and Khida offered it without hesitation, the sun-man being more than big enough to wield the weapon. She watched him study it, glancing away only briefly as the fish-girl darted back towards their own camp. He went on to speak of the Konti as a race, something about growing and aging and words that must have been numbers but not ones she recognized in Pavi. She came away understanding that they aged like humans, more or less, and was satisfied with that answer; fundamentally, it meant to her that they aged slow. The fine details of how slow, really didn't matter.

His discourse shifted again, to bows, to seeing and making and someone Drykas. The Kelvic remained pensively silent for a few ticks, shuffling his words -- the words she understood -- around in her head and putting them together to forge some semblance of meaning. He wanted to buy a bow from the Drykas, clearly enough, a bow for the girl. "The where I go," she said at last, gesturing towards the bow he held. "They have all the things, teach to use. Maybe have small bow, make small bow." He spoke of targets, practice, and she nodded; yes. "If we go in the city, I can show."

But he paused there, regarding her with a sudden weight, a gravitas not in keeping with the light-hearted discussion of bows and targets -- but entirely in keeping with the subject of gods. Affirmation. A different place. A change. It was not the answer she had wanted, but she accepted it all the same, even if the Kelvic wasn't sure what to do with it.

Nor did she understand why it made him grin, flash of humor as bright as the glint of sun on water.

Perhaps fortunately, the little fish returned then, bearing bow and quiver to her father. Arrows were a more familiar, and more comfortable, context for Khida, and she acquiesced readily to the invitation. "There are targets, are at Hunter's Allegiance. We go there, I show the shop," she offered, gesturing towards the distant core of the tent-city. We go.

Khida space Common | Pavi
other space Common | Pavi