Closed Dreams of Water [Garland]

[Anibesa]

"Common" | "Fratava" | "Tukant"

”Well it doesn’t seem like you’re doing that good of a job protecting them anyway! They’d probably be better off wandering off on their own. At least then other settlers would know that your kids were in trouble rather than thinking that they were safe.” Anibesa said with venom in her voice as she glared towards the man. ”Besides, they’d be very unlikely to drown here. Usually there’s a mage here, but he knows when people want to swim in privacy.” she said sharply and coldly before adding an utterance under her breath. ”Unlike some people!”

Then she heard him talking about emotional strength and Anibesa rolled her eyes slightly.
”So you want to raise an overly tough kid who’s probably not going to know how to express his emotion due to you telling him not to express emotion?” Anibesa leant back on the rock, covering her face with her hands as she chuckled slightly. ”At least I won’t be trying to raise four kids and failing.”

Then she heard the man react to the information she’d given about Svefra sacrificing children that didn’t have blue eyes, and she listened to him.
”The blue eyed ones would have been fine. They have Laviku in their eyes. Any other colour means that they aren’t Laviku’s. That would probably bring more trouble than they were worth really.” she said nonchalantly, as though the idea of babies being sacrificed didn’t phase her, despite the uncomfortable feeling she got whenever she thought of such a loss of life. ”Waste of nine months and a life but not my place to judge unfortunately. They took me on, only due to the blue eyes, so I figured I’d best just go along with it or turn a blind eye.” she said calmly, before hearing the man utter under his breath that he needed to hit something, and she sat up again, moving her hands away from her face to glare at the man.

She was about to say something in retaliation to it when the youngest child started to cry, likely triggered by the amount of crying going on around her.
As soon as she heard the sound, Anibesa gritted her teeth, unsure of what to do and finding the sound to be almost unbearable.

Still gritting her teeth Anibesa glanced around to spot the infant lying on the stone. The man was too busy with the little boy, and she doubted that either of the other kids would be able to attempt to calm the infant.

”Leth give me strength!” she mumbled before moving to sit next to the infant, picking her up and holding her against her chest, the babies head cradled just beneath her collarbone as she tried to hold the child there.

The child was wriggling about a lot and wailing loudly and Anibesa was unsure of what to do. She could barely think over the noise and while she gritted her teeth she ignored the man and gently stroked the infants back, rocking side to side in the hopes that it would mimic the movement of the sea, something that she herself had always found calming.
~

[Garland]

Garland took a deep breath, now was not the time to punch people. He gave a sideways glance to the annoying Sverfa before returning his attention to the crying baby boy in his arms.

"Oh, I'm sorry breaching your privacy, last time I checked this was a COMMUNITY pool. Did you rent it out by chance?" Garland replied sarcastically before he helped Ilia up from the pool.

Garland looked at Ilia and gave her a little kiss to calm both of them down. "Tough? What do you know about being tough? Emotion should be shown at the right time and at the right place, you need to learn to keep your emotions in check, unlike some people!" He replied, not quite seeing that what he said also related to him and his nearly out of control emotions.

“At least I'm trying, judging from how you act, your parents probably just left you alone to your pod, they probably don't even remember you.” Garland retorted with a small smirk.

This is what this encounter has devolved into, each of them insulting one another.

Phobos sobbed slowly, he hiccupped as his cries died down due to the cradling and the reassurance his father gave him. Phobos wrapped his tiny arms around Garland in a hug.

“There there, little man, you're doing fine.” He said and pat Phobos’ back. “Ilia, your mother is fine and I'm sure she knows your with me and when she comes to her senses, she'll come running here to Syka.”

Garland wasn't so sure about what he said, but he was sure, Ilia needed as much support as she could, she just lost two people important in her life in one season and Garland had never faced anything like that, but he can imagine how much strength she needed to just not break down and cry.

Ilia followed Phobos lead and hugged Garland tight, still sobbing uncontrollably. Her tears stained Garland's already wet clothes.

Aneka had no idea what was going on, but she thought if she buttered up to her father she could get out of time out, and so she joined in on the hug.

Then Garland was now covered in two crying kids and a very annoyed one. That was when Ilu started crying, he had one arm open but he was currently immobilized.

He could see the girl moved towards where Ilu was and Garland raised up his free arm and had his wrist crossbow primed and ready to fire.

Garland paused when he saw her cradling her. He stared, his crossbow still primed and ready to fire. He pulled back his arm and said. “Support the head, and if you want to calm her down, sing a lullaby.”

Garland unprimed his crossbow but kept an eye on the last currently holding his baby, he was just waiting for her to do something.

By Viratas, if she hurts her in any way, I will make sure she rues the day she was born.

[Anibesa]

"Common" | "Fratava" | "Tukant"

She heard the man's reply about breaching her privacy and she rolled her eyes, glaring at him, not being given the chance to respond before he started briefly ranting about toughness and knowing when to keep his emotions in check and she found herself smirking slightly at the man.

”You really are intolerable, aren’t you? Thinking you’re all this and that when really you’re still just a boy!” she said, her voice full of venom as she started feeling as they she was getting hungry, her mood immediately becoming more irritable.

Then she heard him mention that her parents must have left her and that they likely wouldn’t remember her, and she found herself chuckling slightly. She didn’t have parents. The closest to a parent she had was Leth, after all she had entered this world by falling from his domain.

”That’s assuming I was born and that I even have parents. Even if I did have parents they’d likely be long dead! You don’t tend to live long on the Suvan Sea!” she stated, still chuckling slightly as she glancing up to the sun, before glaring at it slightly.

She held nothing against Syna, though the feeling of hunger was one she wouldn’t be feeling if it was Leth’s time and he lit up the sky.

Then she heard the man comforting the little boy and smiled slightly, listening to the little girl. Then she just watched as the man was ambushed with children hugging him. It was sweet to see the kids showing their affection, despite the look of annoyance on the younger girls face.

Then she found her eyes widening once she’d picked up the baby and the man aimed some sort of weapon at her, before rolling her eyes slightly.

”You think I wish to harm a kid? No thank you. I might not like you, and I might not be the biggest fan of kids, but that doesn’t mean I want to hurt them. Besides this is a settlement. Everyone knows everything. I don’t want an angry mob chasing me into the jungle!” she sighed, before hearing him tell her how to hold the baby and telling her that she should sing to calm down the baby. ”I can’t sing!” she said, before adjusting her position so one of her hands was on the back of the babies head, the little girls crying still irritating her.

She wanted the child to stop crying, but she knew that her singing wouldn’t be the best and she didn’t want to cause the child to start crying more.
Sighing, she closed her mouth and pressed her teeth against her lower lip, and the tip of her tongue rested on the top of her bottom teeth, lightly touching her lip, before she forced air out of her nose, a quiet hum coming from it as she moved her jaw and tongue slightly to try and change the pitch.
It took a few attempts, but eventually she found herself able to make some semblance of a tune with three different notes. It wasn’t the best, or the most calming, but just the sound itself seemed to help the baby relax and her cries turned to weak sniffles, before even those quietened.

”What do I do now?” she said quietly, stopping humming and trying not to disturb the baby.
~

[Garland]

Garland was about to retort but he looked at the kiddie pile on him and calmed himself down. "Alright, alright, kids, that's enough." He said and tried to gently push the kids off of him, but they seemed very clingy right now.

A little smile crept up on Garland, even if he's arguing with an annoying Sverfa girl. The kids really had a calming effect on Garland when they wanted to. Except Aneka since after the hug, thinking she's off the hook, ran off to the pool and hopped in.

"Hey... Oh forget it..." He sighed and looked up to the stranger holding his baby. "No parents huh? No wonder you have terrible manners." Said the man who invaded someone's privacy and used her clothes as a bed for his baby.

Although he didn't say it with anger this time, more of an observation than an insult or attack about her. The two kids finally let Gar go and he stood back up. "Ilia, dry yourself off, I think you're aunt Jade packed some cheese and bread, it is right around lunch time."

Garland kissed Phobos and placed him down on the ground before grabbing a towel from his bag and began wiping himself off. He took off his shirt and looked to where the girl placed her wet clothes and Garland placed his own clothes on a different rock to dry.

His body was quite fit, it is true his abs are quite nicely formed, but he wasn't at his peak physical game so to speak, he had a very easy life in Alvadas oddly enough, and so far he's been very relaxed in Syka, still he trained to keep himself sharp, but has not really worked on improving himself in any way.

Except holding his liquor maybe, he can now drink much more before he blacks out drunk and wrestles a bear with a bar stool, or gets so drunk he forgot he impregnated someone and had another biological daughter that's being held by a stranger right now.

There were a few scars on his palms and some on his chest, the ones on his palms seemed more deliberate, more ceremonial, but the ones on his chest seemed to be sword wounds that have healed over.

Garland didn't have as many scars as one might have thought, scars were the badge of experience to some of the knights, but to Garland scars proved just how weak they really were, a good fighter wouldn't have so many scars and properly protected himself.

A true mark of a fighter is how badly his armor and shield was, and they were very very bad.

"Give her here, and your humming is much better than mine, trust me." Garland said and held out his arms for Ilu.

[Anibesa]

"Common" | "Fratava" | "Tukant"

As the man insulted her manners, Anibesa rolled her eyes, opting not to retort verbally anymore. The man seemed to not realise how everything he said could have been said right back to him and been just as valid, instead she just kept holding the baby and cradling her head, trying to keep her calm.

She was glad that the small thing had stopped crying. The sound had been irritating to Anibesa, but from the volume she didn’t doubt that some of the predators in the jungle had heard the crying, and if she’d cried much longer, she suspected that one of those creatures would have braved breaching the settlement in search of a helpless snack, and Ani knew she wasn’t a match for anything in the jungle.

Frowning, she saw the man take his top off, and she noticed the scars on him, combined with his muscles and she rolled her eyes again.

”So you’re a fighter? Why doesn’t that surprise me!” she mumbled slightly. The scars on him didn’t look like injuries she or any of the Svefra in her pod had ever received.

Then the man asked for the child back and awkwardly she passed the baby to him, making sure not to drop the child or let her head hang back too far, then she smirked at the mans comment.
”Then you must sound like a dying cat when you try.” she found herself chuckling slightly. ”But if you’re away from safety and no-one is around, you’d be best off making sure she doesn’t cry too much. Otherwise you might attract something and end up with a trip to the Panacea and even more of those scars at best!” she said calmly, her head gesturing towards the jungle and then in the direction of the Panacea. Though she wasn’t the biggest fan of the man or his kids so far, she knew that the settlement wouldn’t survive unless they grew in numbers and all worked together, so a man that had what looked like fighting scars might be useful in the settlement. He could also be useful to the settlement in ways that weren’t immediately obvious to the Ethaefal.

”So what do you do then? I’m a bartender, trying to get set up with a brewery though.” she said calmly, now curious as to what the man would be doing in Syka and how he would fit into the small community.

As she listened to the man's response, Anibesa pulled on the rest of her clothes, her hair now only slightly damp having dried mostly in the heat of the sun. She was quite glad for that, not wanting to feel her hair dampening her top and causing it to stick to her.
~

[Ashka]

Your Grades!

Please remember to edit your grading request. If you have any questions, comments or concerns regarding your grade, please do not hesitate to send me a PM.

Name: Anibesa
XP Award:

• Planning 1
• Swimming 3
• Observation 3
• Socialisation 5
• Childcare 2
• Interrogation 1
• Intimidation 1
• Singing 1
• Rhetoric 1

Lore:

• Garland: has four children
• Garland: careless father
• Ilia: oldest of Garland's children
• Svefra kill babies without blue eyes
• Singing: hum a tune

Notes: Enjoy your grades


Name: Garland
XP Award:

• Example 1
• Example 2

Lore:

• Example 1
• Example 2

Notes: I will post your grades once you have paid your seasonal expenses