3 Summer 263
Astarael didn’t think she could ever become accustomed to being in the saddle, riding at a hard pace across the Sea of Grass in the mass of men and women who were the Sunstrike clan. Her thighs were often bruised from the pounding they took, even though the yvas seemed very friendly to both horses and riders, and she’d become better accustomed to them than she did the hard saddle she’d rode to Endrykas with.
She bounced against the horse under her and groaned at this newest displeasure, the horse responding by tilting her ears back. Astarael, thinking it’d sooth any uncertainty the animal had, leaned forward and ran her hand down the beast’s sweat-licked neck, crooning noises she thought were comforting and reassuring. Someone next to her, one of the family’s young men, laughed and said something to the man riding abreast of him. The stream of Pavi he trailed off wasn’t entirely foreign to the ethaefal, but she was confused, stringing the sentence together as, ‘who does she think she’s friendly to? Euna’s a confident girl; the woman could be taught’.
“Taught what?” The Ethaefal asked, tilting her head. Sun-streaked the deep red tones of her hair, struck her eyes and made them like quicksilver in the sudden way that the light made her appear rosy rather than like marble. She rode in the same attire that they did, dressed in purple scarves and riding breeches, those gold-streaked strands of red braided beneath the elegant crown of her horns, but she didn’t ride like them, and she suspected that was what they meant.
“Not taught,” the first man said, laughing again. The sound was rich against the snorting of horses and the steady creaking of a Seme’s pulled wagon. Somewhere, a child laughed shrilly, and she found herself smiling although she was not a part of the joke The rushing of the Bluevein could be heard, masked by the tall grasses that made this place so dangerous, babbling into the breeze that did little to cool off sweaty faces and flanks. “I said,” and he repeated the word, adding inflections with his hands that couldn’t be said. He added a few more words, and she understood.
“I could be shown some things?” The woman asked for clarification, furrowing her brow and holding tightly to the beast in front of her. The group had slowed a bit, angling towards the Bluevein in preparation to cross it. She’d not done this part of the yearly trek before, but the Strider she rode had and followed the ones before her knowingly.
“Yes,” he answered. Astarael, remembering his name after a long time without it, knew him to be one of the Ankal’s nephews. Duma, she thought. The one on his other side might have been his brother, their similarities striking, but she couldn’t say. “You don’t have confidence.”
“I’m not good at riding horses,” she said, making a face, “still new at it. Learning, though.”
“Oh?” Duma looked at her, and on his far side, so too did his brother. Astarael felt small under their gaze, but she sat straighter and tried to pretend that she knew what she was doing. Duma laughed again, gestured to her, and his brother laughed too. The Ethaefal only now began to think that maybe she was the butt of a joke between them and she looked away, face hot with wounded pride.
“I’m learning,” she said, a little forceful this time.
“Whoever’s been teaching you isn’t doing so well. Come here,” Duma’s brother said, urging his own Strider forward to outpace Duma and give Astarael the opportunity to ride next to him. Duma moved along to the left, around to Astarael’s other side, and she was surrounded.
