PM to join Whither is thy Beloved gone? (Dravite)

[Arandia]

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III Summer DXV
Eighth Bell

Under the heat of the sun she made up a song about Rak’keli as she rode on Beloved’s back. In Pavi, mostly humming as she struggled to keep her voice from shaking as she bounced on the Yvas.

“O Dark Sister, she who rises,
Mother of Healing and Hale.
Goddess of--”

“Cabbages!” bleated a young man at her elbow. His name was Teke, and he was sixteen. He and Arandia had grown up together, and he was the closest thing to a friend that Arandia had in the entire pavilion.

“No, that doesn’t make any sense. But it rhymes,” Teke said. “It sounds nice.”
“That’s always been your excuse for everything,” Arandia teased. “It sounds nice.”

He smiled at her. The sun was shining and the wind, passing through the Itrod River, was cool as it rustled in the tall grass. They were less than half a day to the Summer Grounds.

There was a time when Arandia dreamed about marrying Teke; perhaps the Ankal would let them, because anyway they weren’t really blood. Perhaps they would make fine, blue-eyed children, who had hair like Arandia and who had strong backs like Teke. But it was a long time ago, and they were both grown, and Teke barely spoke to Arandia now that he was married.

“It might make sense,” Teke said. “Cabbages make you healthy. Radishes, too. That rhymes.”
“The whole of Mizahar is glad you’re not a bard, Teke. Stick to making your leathers, maybe.”
“You’re a mean little thing,” Teke laughed. “But that’s all right. I have a favor to ask you.”
“Go on,” Arandia said.
“Well, not just me. We left a couple of things back in the place we camped at last night. A pot and a blanket. They’re very important. We need you to go back and get it.”
“Why don’t you go get it?”Arandia asked, incredulous.
“Well, because. Okay, it was just me. I forgot to pack it and I guess it got lost in the chaos. My wife will be angry at me--”
Arandia snorted.
“--if she knows I left it behind. But, listen, it’s okay! It’s not dangerous! We’ve already gone through those parts and I’ll tell the Ankal where you are so he can check on you in the Web every now and then. It’s really simple, and there’s a delicious meal in it for you.”
“Fine,” Arandia snapped. “But you lead this Seme to Endrykas and set up my tent for me, too.”
“Deal,” Teke grinned. “I’ll even return her to Dakarai when you’re all unpacked. Just don’t tell my wife.”
“Tell your wife?” Arandia tightened her grip on her yvas and steered Beloved to go back down the path. “She won’t even bark at me.”

Before Teke could say anything, Arandia clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and leaned forward. Beloved knew to go fast (though certainly not as fast as he could), and Arandia had to hold on until her knuckles were white from gripping the Yvas handle, or else she would have fallen off. Heading back would take two bells at least, but a free meal was a free meal.

And, besides, it felt good to get away from the pavilion for at least half a day.

Beloved, blowing and snorting as he ran, seemed to feel the same way.
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[Arandia]

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They rode for two bells, not stopping until they reached the blank plain of grass that had been their campsite for a night. For miles, nothing except a small mound of dirt that had been the campfire marred the face of the great grass sea. A tree or two. A grove. Every now and then, a hillock. Further back, days away, past the Serenity Tree, was Lake Serifal and the Itrod River. She could still feel the water in the wind, cool and sweet in the summer sun.

The Sea of Grass stretched on forever, thousands of miles of endless green and blue and untutored wildness. But beyond it there were the cities, too. There were the virulent sands of Ekytol and the blinding white walls of Yahebah. She remembered her girl-child feet on cool tiles on a hot day, of spiced teas and honey slathered bread with raisins and fresh plums.

Her fingers in the honey jar. Her mother laughing at her for spilling everywhere. And there was a man, too, a kind man, one of many kind men in Ruhama’s life.

There was Ahnatep for a year. How old was she? Of Ahnatep her memories were vague; Ruhama didn’t let her stray too far from their stoop. But Arandia remembered the music, the constant stream of lively music and laughing in the streets. The beautiful, sloe-eyed people with their arms, four or six at a time, running to and from glimmering buildings made of gold and sandstone. And the boats. The boats on the coast in the sunset, far enough to look like toys, going down the rivers with their strange whining flutes playing across the water.

There were other places, Arandia reminded herself, and she had been to those places. She carried them all inside of her, with millions of other stars and worlds she felt--knew--were in her belly and her heart. Swelling, always swelling. Tides upon tides. She had no name for them yet.

Beloved was breathing deep, heavy breaths under Arandia. There was sweat on his neck and under his limbs. She became aware of him and stepped down, undid his Yvas, and let him rest. “Don’t wander too far,” she said, brushing her fingers over his mane. “It might be dangerous.” The dun color was darker where there was sweat, and his black mane hung over his eyes. She brushed it over his forehead and patted his flank. Beloved, freed of the yvas and given a blessing to explore, wandered off. She heard him gallop away, running to run, as Striders often did.

Arandia stood on the tips of her toes and stretched her arms up to the sky, as if reaching for it. Her back arched and popped in several places, after which she sank down to the arches of her feet with a satisfied groan. Rolling her shoulders, Arandia closed her eyes and walked around. In her mind she tried to recreate the pavilion. Where the Ankal’s tent had been. Where hers had been. Where they kept the Zibri and the Striders, where they cooked, where Dakarai cleaned a Zibri calf’s hooves…

She had been making clockwise circles in the grass with her feet. Nothing by the fresh dirt they covered the fire with. Nothing a few yards away. She combed the tall grass, then lingered by where the grass had been flattened by rugs and beams. Nothing. Nothing again. Nothing for what felt like at least twenty chimes and then, there it was, mundane and out of place. As if a bad storyteller had mistakenly put it there and forgotten what to do with it: a red clay pot stacked on a blanket by a bit of flattened grass, right next to where a beam had been buried into the earth.

Arandia rolled the blanket up as small as it could go and decided to travel with the pot in her lap; there was no space in her backpack for anything else. But she would have to ride a little slower than before and likely double her travelling time, which was a nuisance. She couldn’t drop the pot. Imagine what Teke’s wife would say.

But where was her Beloved?

Not in the distance. Not where she could see. Had something happened? Had he left her, too? Could he?

“Beloved!” she called out, not trying to keep the panic out of her voice. “Beloved!” as she waded through the grass. Her heart pounded in her throat echoing, “Beloved!” as far as her small voice could carry her..
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[Dravite]

Sleep hadn't come easy in the evening of the second and when the third of summer dawned the young horse lord stared into space, watching the stars fade out of view. As the sun rose he rolled onto his side and slowly sat up, taking note of the golden glow on the horizon. With the tip of his finger he drew a diamond in the sand, just as Mayra had taught him and marked the corresponding points; east where the sun rose, south right of that, west, and finally north. The summer grounds for Endrykas were positioned south-east of their small camp site, but Dravite would use the webbing just to be sure.

He lay down on his bed of grass under the small corner of blanket Belkaia hadn't cocooned herself in with their son, and closed his eyes, falling into the sleep like trance. The webbing stretched like blue veins across the Sea of Grass, acting like the nerve system for the great body of land, detecting, recording, and keeping safe all that went on across its surface. As he traversed the interwoven maze back to Endrykas, the man was pleased to find that they were positioned only half a day’s travel from the city of tents.

When he came to, the sun was set above the horizon and everything below it was black against a burning sky. Belkaia was up with Kyanite at her side, packing away their things and leaving them in neat little piles ready to slip into the saddlebags before they got on the road; that was if Dravite was strong enough to travel today. Belkaia moved to sit down beside her husband and gently stroked his brow under thumb before pushing his knotted hair back from his face. "Did you manage to get any sleep, my love?"
"No," he said honestly; sleep had been impossible, his thoughts heavy with the day passed and those yet to come.
"Rest, husband; Kyanite and I will go foraging no further than that tree," she pointed out and Dravite looked at the diamond in the sand; west, the tree pointed west.
"Take both of the horses," Dravite told her, "If anything happens, your safety comes first."
"What about you?"
"I have my spear," he smiled.

Belkaia bowed to kiss the man's temple before departing; if anything, this had brought them closer together and the once cold youth seemed to have finally warmed to the man she had agreed to marry four years ago. Dravite watched them go until they were out of sight and all he could see we're the tops of the horses backs and the odd flick of a black tail every now and then. Satisfied they were safe, Dravite tuned the world out again to watch their movements in the webbing and keep an eye on the surrounding area; anything that would keep his mind busy enough to stop himself from thinking about Lazuli.

He didn't realise he had drifted off until the rustling of grass woke him and there came the sound of a distant voice that slowly grew closer and closer. Dravite sat up and pushed the blanket aside, glancing west towards the tree Belkaia had pointed out to him. There he saw three horses, his wife and son still busy in the distance, foraging for anything that might sustain them for the day’s journey.

The man thought nothing of the third horse until the stranger’s voice was almost on top on him. Carefully Dravite got to his feet, taking his spear with him and wandered east through the tall grass towards the voice. "Beloved, Beloved?" She called and finally the third horse he had seen alongside those that belonged to his family, made sense.

When he stepped out of the tall grass towards the woman he must have seemed a sight; stray bits straw stuck in his wheat coloured hair, skin that had seen too much sun in the past week, tired eyes, cracked lips, and colourful, dark brushing over his right side that made it seem as if he had been kicked by a horse and left for dead. He would have waved to the woman from his position if he could be sure the action would not worsen the pain he felt in his side.

She looked mysterious at a glance, exotic, all dark features with striking, light blue eyes unlike any he had ever seen, or so he thought, until it occurred to Dravite that those were eyes he had looked into somewhere before. Instantly he recalled and knew exactly what she was, or at least where she hailed from, as his old pavilion had traded with the blue eyed people of the Benshira passing through the Sea of Grass many times before.

It had been years since he had spoken what the odd trader had taught his people of Shiber, and instead of saying he is here, as the man intended, Dravite mistakenly said, "I am here," in the foreign tongue; and, not realising his mistake, smiled. .
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[Arandia]

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For one light-headed, surreal moment Arandia thought that Beloved had learned how to speak in Pavi-accented Shiber and had chosen to play a trick on her with his new talents. But it was a man, and he looked at once tired and insolent, smiling as he said, “I am here.”

He spoke to her in Shiber, which was insulting, and joked with her when she was searching for her Strider. You’re obviously a foreigner, he seemed to be saying, and it struck a raw nerve. Color jumped up to Arandia’s cheeks and her expression rippled into irritation. “You joke,” she said in Pavi, hands flying up to make the grassland sign for impatience. “This isn’t the time for jokes. I’m looking for my Strider. What happened to you?”

There was an aurora borealis of bruises over his right side, watercolors of black, deep blue, green and red spreading from his rib cage to his arm and collarbone. “Have you broken something?” The Drykas man--because he was obviously Drykas, from his windmarks to his trousers--had seen better days. Dehydration was apparent in the cracked skin around his mouth, the swollen bags under his eyes, and the dry, sunburned skin. “Do you have water? Who are you with?”

Arandia checked her mouth and the stream of questions that came from it. Her tone had been brusque and irascible when the man was clearly ailing or lost or both. Abandoned, maybe. He looked like he had been kicked by a horse and left for dead.

“Put down your spear,” she said, opening her palms to show him that she had nothing in her hands that could harm him. “I have water. You need it very badly.”

The grass rustled under her feet as she moved towards him. She took the waterskin off of her shoulder and stretched her arm out to offer him the container without invading his space. The water in the skin hardly made a sound. It was full, almost to spilling. She exhorted him to drink. “As much as you need,” she added. “Endrykas is near. My pavilion collected a lot of water on the way.”

It was nearing noon. Their shadows were short on the grass and the sun was bearing down on both of their heads. Arandia shielded her eyes with the flat of her hand to better look at the stranger; noted how he was standing, most of his weight on his left side. Noted his hands, studied his clothes and accouterments to see what clan he might have been from. But mostly she avoided his eyes. Arandia could never look at someone's face for longer than a tick. She didn't like people to look at her eyes, either. They were what marked her most prominently as a foreigner.

“I am Arandia Reddawn of the Ruby Clan,” she said, and when she said it a large part of her felt like an impostor, but she soldiered on. “I am Drykas, not Benshira.” She paused, drew herself up, shoulders back, at her full height. “Beloved is my Strider. I worry that something’s happened to him.”

Arandia held Teke’s earthen pot in front of her stomach, as if to shield herself from the stranger’s curious gaze. She could almost hear him think it: Drykas? Who are you kidding?
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[Dravite]

Arandia’s accent was all Drykas, as was her masterful hold on their language; from behind she might have even looked like one of them but faced with those eyes… Well, Dravite just couldn’t be sure what to believe, his ears, or line of sight. The young woman from the Reddawn pavilion asked him to set aside his weapon and seemed to hold out her water-skin as trade for abiding by her words. He held his spear back as if he were about to drop it and then reached out to snatch the water-skin from Arandia’s hand. The spear came between them again as he drank and put some distance between them.

Although she had offered for him to take enough from the water-skin to sate his thirst, Dravite took no more than a cup before doing the skin up to drop at Arandia’s feet. She had asked if he had broken something and this caused the man to glance down at his side and notice the bruising had spread, from the size of his palm, to that of two open fists, reaching up under his arm and around to his back. “Hm,” the young horse lord hummed and scratched the back of his neck with his free hand, which made him suck in a sharp breath before he spoke and slowly lowered his arm. “I’m Dravite Blackwater of the Diamond Clan. I think I've broken a rib, it’s too painful to ride, but I can walk just fine.”

The Drykas were a proud people, and though it seemed this stranger had convinced herself that she was one of them, Dravite couldn't help but feel something was amiss. He studied her clothing, her height, the fall of her woven, black hair, and the shape of her face; returning to the shockingly blue gaze that Arandia averted from him now. “Only slaves look at their feet when they are spoken to; are you a slave, girl?”

“I already told you I know where your horse is. I am here,” Dravite repeated the last three words in Shiber, just as he had the first time, only now he pointed past the tall grass to the west where his wife and son stood stroking the animal who seemed to have made himself right at home alongside the other two Striders.

“I am here,” Dravite said again in Shiber before translating what he thought he had been saying in Pavi, “He is here.” .
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[Arandia]

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“I am not a slave,” she snapped, eyes riveting themselves on Dravite’s face. Her brows were bent with ire, and she was almost sorry that she had given him water. “And you’re in no position to be so arrogant, Dravite Blackwater.” She gestured at his side. “You can’t even ride.”

She didn’t bother to correct his Shiber. Any other time, any other person, and she would have laughed and explained away the confusion. But Dravite Blackwater was testing her patience, and quickly eating away at her generosity.

Arandia walked past him and towards where he had come from, past the tall grass and to where she saw five blurred figures in the distance. A woman, a child, two horses, and Beloved, curiously touching muzzles with a Buckskin stallion about as tall as he was, and just as heavily built. The woman and child, who Arandia surmised were Dravite’s wife and son, were petting the strider’s black mane.

She put Teke's pot down, cupped her hands over the sides of her mouth and called his name.

The dun colored strider’s ears pricked up and towards his rider’s voice. He lifted his head, saw Arandia, and started to trot towards her, his tail high and swishing as he pranced along, shaking his mane about.

Arandia turned from him and towards Dravite, sap pommel dagger out with Teke’s blanket. Later on, when replaying the scene in her head, Arandia would wince at how reckless she had been, drawing a dagger out without warning in the presence of a belligerent Drykas, even if it were only to cut the length of cloth to make a sling. She cut it up to about forty inches square, then folded the square diagonally to make a triangle. Arandia held up the dagger, making sure that Dravite saw that she sheathed it and returned it to the bowels of her backpack.

“Drop your spear,” she said again, “so we can put your arm in a sling. You’ll be more comfortable.”

She had seen Madadh Reddawn, a man with some medical experience, do it when someone broke their arm or something like it before they could get to Endrykas and be properly tended to at the River Flower.

Beloved approached them and snorted, nose pointed to Dravite. One hoof was raised and both his ears were pointed towards the stranger with the spear. In the distance, Belkaia and Kyanite looked on.

Arandia spread the triangle of cloth out so he could see that nothing was concealed in it. “I’m no threat to you or yours, Dravite Blackwater.” She met his gaze again. “I promise. By my mother's eyes.”.
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[Dravite]

Dravite pointed his gaze to the ground momentarily as Arandia barked at him for calling her a slave; perhaps he had been wrong about her, she was almost as bossy as his wife after all, and no slave would dare to title him with such names as arrogant. “Arrogant!” He echoed, following after the woman that passed by like a summer storm.

“I can ride,” he told her, “It is just painful to do so.” This time he was the one throwing an arm up to sign for impatience.

The girl summoned her Strider with just a call and Dravite stood and watched, envious as the dun coloured stallion trotted up to greet her; why wouldn’t Cree come when he was called like that? Beloved was beautiful and every bit as handsome as Cree, though his coat seemed somewhat lighter in comparison, and the tips of his ears were black, primitive markings that looked a little like tiger stripes drawn in the hair across his knees; the sign of a true dun.

When Arandia drew her dragger the man stopped in his tracks and set his spear at the ready. Honestly, what was her problem; didn’t she know it was dangerous to confront a stranger on the Sea of Grass with such a pathetic weapon? She stood between him and his family who stood back some way off in the distance. It was a dangerous position for anyone wielding a weapon to find themselves in, even if they were Drykas. “Why, might you accidently fall on it?” He grumbled like the sky before rain and then set his spear aside; he had other weapons at hand after all, the hatchet and steel dagger on his belt.

Arandia assured the man that she was no threat to him or his family and something in her tone made him believe it. She spread out a colourful piece of woven cloth in front of him which she called a sling. Dravite looked at the fabric, not sure what the girl intended to do with it. His gaze then shifted as he noticed Belkaia had started making her way back to camp, or the patch of ground they had slept on for the night, sharing one blanket with no tent set up overhead.

“Where is your pavilion?” Dravite asked; his tone gentle, perhaps even concerned, less defensive than it had been, “It’s too dangerous for a girl to be out here alone, for anyone to be out here alone.” .
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[Arandia]

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"Why, might you accidentally fall on it?"
"Is that what happened to you?" she shot back when he put his spear down. Satisfied that he was unarmed she walked back towards him, close enough to begin her work. First she took out a needle and a spool of white thread from her sewing kit to fasten the edge of the bandage, near his elbow. It was crooked, shoddy work, the best she could do under the circumstances. It didn't help that she spoke while she stitched: "It's polite to lower your weapon when somebody offers to help you. At least that's what I was taught, Dravite Blackwater."

It was the same tone she took with Milos Reddawn, the Ankal's son; the teasing deference that was due to a haughty child. It was the same tone her mother had taken with her. Patient, with just an undercurrent of ribbing, a gentle you’re being silly, you’re being a child that had made Arandia quiet.

Maybe she was being reckless. Milos was a boy and the tone was lost on him, and Arandia had been a little girl who always listened to her mother. Dravite was a tempestuous warrior with a spear. There was always a chance he wouldn’t take kindly to the tone and decide that it was beneath him. That her condescension, however good-natured, was beneath him, and that he would become violent. But between his lowered weapon and his battered body Arandia didn’t think it was likely.

Arandia wrapped a bit of fabric around his wrist, snug but not too tight, and tied the open ends of the sling into a sturdy knot behind his neck. She was ginger with his arm, taking care not to jostle it any more than was necessary, holding it only with the tips of her fingers and the bowl of her palm. “So you don’t move it too much,” she explained as she tightened the knot. “So it won’t hurt as much.”

“Where is your pavilion?” he asked her, sounding placated. It was too dangerous, he said, for a girl to be out in the wilds alone.

She shrugged, then bent to pick up her pot and her waterskin. The work gave her an excuse to avoid his gaze again. “They’re not far,” she told him. From somewhere behind her, Arandia heard the sound of footfalls in the grass, drawing nearer. “They’re only two bells away if I ride fast. And we’ve already been through this area.” She echoed Teke. “The Ankal is keeping watch. Endrykas isn’t far.”

Even as she spoke, she realized how naive she had been to trust Teke’s word. Even if it were true and he had told the Ankal and assuming that they cared enough about one unmarried girl to, how fast could their Striders go if, say, a bear or a wolf would decide to attack her right at that instant? Her stomach turned as hollow as the earthen pot. “Perhaps I should ride a little faster,” she said under her breath.

Belkaia caught up to them, Kyanite in tow. “Dravite?”
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[Dravite]

Belkaia slowed and stood for a moment before scooping her son up in her arms to edge closer to the stranger and her husband. "It’s okay, my love," Dravite told her softly, in a tone Arandia might not think him capable of.
"What it that on your arm? Who is she?" Belkaia queried.
"This is..." Dravite paused, not wanting to admit that he had forgotten the woman's name already, "A silly girl to be traveling all alone, a stupid girl for believing a pavilion two bells away could be of any use to her, but a lucky girl... for we are going to join her on the road to Endrykas."

Belkaia, who was just as cautious as her husband, came to stand at the man's side, tugging on the sling gently that kept his right arm in place. "What good will this do your rib?" She pinned Arandia with her gaze and held Kyanite closer to her.
"To keep it up," Dravite explained, "to keep the weight off I think; it's called a sling."
Belkaia's eyes lit up. "A doctor!"

She handed her son to the stranger and stroked his hair. Kyanite, who was used to being passed around the different mothers, daughters, and sisters of the Windborne pavilion, didn't seem to mind, until he noticed Arandia's eyes and suddenly became shy. "He has a temperature," Belkaia explained, "and he did not sleep well during the night."
Dravite stepped forward and took his son. "I don't think she is that kind of doctor," he told his wife.

Belkaia bowed her head; Dravite didn't worry about the little things like she did. If her boy fell over, Dravite would laugh and say, 'It will toughen him up.' When he had a tummy-ache, her husband would say, 'It will pass,' and in the night while she lay there watching Kyanite sleep, Dravite told her to stop worrying and get some rest. But for a woman who had abandoned everything she knew to remain loyal to her husband, Kyanite was now all she had and she would worry about the bruises, the minor temperatures, and his trouble sleeping. "I see," Belkaia sighed as she took her son and summoned the horses with a wave to pack their things into saddlebags.
"We will be ready to leave soon," she told her husband before turning to Arandia, "thank you for helping him."

Dravite noticed his wife's hand on the stranger's arm and the light squeeze she offered Arandia before moving on. While Belkaia packed their things Dravite stood with Arandia. "You don't have to travel with us," he told her, "but I would feel better if you did; I think we both would." .
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[Arandia]

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A feeling of pride welled up in Arandia’s throat when Belkaia exclaimed, “A doctor!” Arandia smiled. ‘I’m not a doctor’ formed in the back of her throat but did not quite come out of her mouth. When Belkaia handed the little boy to Arandia, Arandia’s smile became shy. Arandia had never been allowed to handle a child before, and the boy was such a lovely weight in her arms, and she was sorry when his father took him away.

“I don’t think she’s that kind of doctor,” Dravite said.
“I’m not a doctor,” Arandia finally admitted, “but I know a little medicine. Enough.” Arandia felt Kyanite’s forehead and they smiled at each other, Kyanite uncharacteristically shy as the strange woman was. “I think he will be all right, but it is good to give him plenty of water and keep him warm in the night. The three of you will need to visit the medicine tents when you get to Endrykas; the doctors there know far better than I do.”
“I see,” Belkaia sighed.

Arandia felt her stomach crumple at the look of disappointment on Belkaia’s face. Belkaia had seemed so overjoyed, so full of faith in “a doctor” that it had made Arandia believe that she could be a doctor, because why not?
“Thank you for helping him,” Belkaia said, then, and squeezed Arandia’s arm. Arandia’s heart swelled up again, and she smiled, inordinately happy that she could be of use, with the thanks Belkaia gave her as evidence of it. Arandia could have held it up like a jewel and stored it in her pocket; every thank you, every smile to Arandia was a sphere of sunlight she could hold up to her face for every day that passed without a word of acknowledgement from her pavilion.

Dravite saw the interaction and Arandia saw a thought flicker behind his eyes before he spoke again. “You don’t have to travel with us, but I would feel better if you did; I think we both would.”
“All right,” she said, without hesitating. “Kyanite will need water, and so will you, and I think I have enough for the both of you until we get to Endrykas.”

Suddenly Arandia remembered Teke’s blanket, all quartered up and turned into a sling for Dravite. ‘I didn’t find the blanket,’ she would tell Teke. ‘Only your pot. The blanket must have blown away with the wind.’

Arandia helped Belkaia pack, now and then asking what went where and if she were allowed to touch this thing or that. All the while she glanced between the three of them, Kyanite, Dravite, and Belkaia, with a mix of envy and wonder. They were alone out here, in the wilds of the Sea of Grass. It was almost unheard of for people to be travelling without a pavilion, or at least without their pavilion nearby.

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Riding with the pot in her lap, even slowly, was awkward. Arandia’s legs felt too high up off the ground on the 16-hand stallion, and sometimes Beloved broke into a canter ahead, swishing his tail. Arandia struggled to keep her grip on the pot and on the yvas, terrified of slipping and breaking her leg or returning to Teke empty handed.

As they rode on, Beloved seemed to take a liking to Cree and rode beside him. The two stallions made rumbling noises at each other as if talking in their own version of Pavi, their nostrils moving as they spoke. Arandia tried to imagine what they were talking about.
‘It’s very hot,’ Beloved seemed to say. ‘I don’t like the summer. I sweat too much.’
‘I like the heat,’ Cree replied. ‘I like sweating! It’s wonderful to be sweating.’
‘Bah, sweating. I have half a mind to run back to the river and swim for a while.’
Just as Arandia thought it, Beloved’s head moved and seemed to point behind them (he was swatting away a small, white insect that had tried to crawl up into his nose). Arandia laughed, forgetting that Dravite was right on the horse beside her, and scratched the space behind Beloved’s ears. “No, you mustn’t. Endrykas is near.”

Arandia noticed Dravite give her a quizzical look. Arandia shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, even though Dravite might not have asked her a question, and then to change the subject, “Where is your pavilion? Why were you three out there alone?”
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