Completed Of Love and Me and All Things Human

[Aramenta]

Spring 14, 513 AV
Late Evening
Stonewhistling Pavilion, Endrykas
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The wind blew over the Cyphrian grasslands with a force that, in perhaps other cities, might be thought a storm. In Endrykas, it was not - it was simply Spring. The nights sometimes were exuberant, and rolled across the waving grass, tickling at the napes of the necks of each blade, giggling through the sky to whirl about the occaisional cottonwood tree.

Or the camp of the Drykas.

The Stonewhispering Pavilion lay close to the edges of the city, for the herds of the Stonewhisperings were not small, and they liked to stay close to them, even while they slept. And so the pavilion was built strong and true, to take the wind, and run wood-canvas fingers underneath it, tossing it up the walls into the sky, in a repeating, playful dance.

Ara had heard the dance all her life, the gentle groaning of the slender poles, the pull and push of the warp and woof of canvas, the way that in the silence of the deep knight, you could hear the fibers of cloth whir-whoosh against each other, and the occasional playful howls of a strong gust, rolling up the wall with a teasing war whoop. There was a lulling quality to it, a pale familiarity to the noise.

"Liv? Are you awake?" her thin strand of her whisper-speak curled like a warm ball into the sounds of wind and waft.

"Hmm? What's that, Missy Ama?"

"Did I wake you?"

"Oh, no... was just dreaming a bit."

Ama reached over in her narrow bed, and touched the hand of her slave, laying her hand across the other girl's.

"I can't sleep, Livvy." Her hand curled, slowly, tentatively, he fingers calling just the palest shadow of a nervous squeeze.

"The wind, Missy?"

"No, its a nice wind."

She felt Livvy's sleepy fingers squeeze comfortingly back against her own, "Them boys, then, hmm?"

Ara's hand warmed with a blush that spread from the roots of her hair, "I don't want to be a grownup yet, I think. I just want to stay here, in Papa's tent, with my Liv, and Canterwalk."

"Oh, tut, now, Missy Ara. You don't think I'm a gone give you little baby Drykas?" her hand made a mildly vulgar gesture against against Ara's. It felt nice, silly, meaningless. It made Ara feel younger.

She gave the slave's hand a playful smack, "Tut, dirty minded slave girl! I want... I want to go have my babies, and all, I just... I don't know. Everything is so terrible now, so many people died. So much..."

She coughed, the long sentence drawing too much from her delicate throat. Livvy leaned over and patted her back, stroking it.

"Hush now, Ara-missy. Listen to me now, you know your Livvy knows all that, hmm? Tain't that you doan wanna grow, Missy. You jus' want it to tell a good love ballad." she laughed with her fingers down the girls back, as her breathing calmed, but pressed gently at the base of the spine, 'I understand, I understand', "Don't always work that way. ITs hard. Them boys ain't thinking you a piece o' meat, ain't like what it look like. But... sure, they're ready to do something. So many people dead, they gone start wanting more boys to get married off. Saps in the cottonwoods, anyway, you know. Thats when a boy gets hungry for someone. I figure they act like fools, sure, but thats only 'cause they's as scared as you."

Ara had turned to her side while she coughed, and reached back over her shoulder now, to rest her fingers against Ama's face, nervously, looking for comfort and rest.

"What it they isn't, Liv?"

"Your papa ain't gone marry you off to know rough or drunk. He love you too much. He find you a nice man, 'fore he accept a hand for you."

"Its all just too big."

Liv shifted, stretched an arm out to her mistress, "Shh... Missy Ara, you come over, here. Lay over here, I'll sing you down. Its late, we can sing real soft."

Ara, trundled over quickly, rested her head on the other girl's shoulder, felt the girls stockier arm wrap around her back. Ara put her own hand on the girls belly, now, and said nothing with her lips, only let her fingers run gratefully over the rough nightshirt over her navel

Liv smiled her hand pressing gently against her mistress's back, and murmured a song, low and soft to her, sad and sweet, but gentle. The song was only simple, just the gentle sort of crooning that a slave might do over a cradle, the odd canting-haunt of a low-song. But she used the name "Ama", their private, secret name. A joke it had been years ago, when Livvy was too young to to find an 'R' in her throat, but one that was their own name to share, now.

"Livvy say,
Livvy say Ama,
Don't you look down.

Ain't no road here to glory,
Don't you look down.

Livvy say,
Livvy say Ama,
Hold on my hand.

Ain't no road here to glory,
Hold on my hand.

Livvy say,
Livvy say Ama,
Rest on my breast.

Ain't no road here to glory,
Rest on my breast."

Ara began to drift on her shoulder, her little body slowly stilling, her heart slowing.

"Someday a man come, and he take you away,
But you rest on my breast, love, till it come to that day."

Ara's eyelids fluttered slightly against Liv's collarbones, and her breath come soft and slow across the slave's breast.

"Livvy say,
Livvy say Ama,
Don't you look back

I'll be right here behind you,
On a Horse painted black.

Ride a road on to glory, now,
And don't you look back."

Livvy pulled the last notes mildly back into her throat, and touched Ara's back gently to make sure she was asleep. Then reached up with her other hand, and wiped the wet from her own eyes.

[Jackalope]

Aramenta

Award

Skill	XP Earned	Lore Earned
Observation	+2	Fearing Adulthood
		Liv Provides Comfort
		Song: Livvy Say

Witty Remark Here

Wonderful thread. Looking forward to seeing more interaction between Ama and Liv, and great job capturing the worries of a young girl afraid of a new world. If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, please send me a PM and we can figure it out.