PM to join [Hunt] A Helping Hand (Taylani)

[Hope Dawnwhisper]

79th Day of Fall, 513AV
Early Morning

It had been a while since Isalie had had to scavenge or forage for anything, and the first time that she was doing such a thing south of the Syliran border. It brought back more than a few negative memories for the runaway slave; once again she finds herself being reminded of a time full of pain and loss and fear. In Syliras, for the short time that she was there, she had found that scavenging was her main source of food. Sometimes, the girl would use what limited knowledge she had of plants of the area to make sure she wasn't eating something poisonous. Often she would fall ill for a day or two, but it would always pass, and she thanked the Gods each time it did.

Shahar had given her a vague idea of why they had left the main encampment - a hunt was occurring. Exact details passed straight over her head; the language barrier was still giving the man trouble in communicating with his property. But she understood that he wanted her to go, and so she went, lacklustre and half-hearted as always.

The fact that the young woman was still too weak to be of any use on the hunt itself had not been missed by her master. Indeed, Isalie doubted whether she would even be able to remain upright on a horse for extended periods of time, especially in the unfamiliar saddles that the Drykas people used. It was questionable whether or not she had the strength or endurance for such endeavours. So, the apathetic, malnourished creature had been tasked with foraging.

She was not alone, though; many were in the same vicinity, picking below and above from edible parts of plants.There was only one close to Isalie, however, another slave, of similar age, although one who had more meat on her bones. Isalie had seen her before, at numerous occasions. First, when they had both been kept in the Captives' Pavilion before the auction, then at various intervals after the pair had been sold to their respective owners. The dark haired girl knew on sight that the other had probably never left Syliras, and had never really had any trials in her life. She felt silent pity for the ones who had been torn away from their relatively easy lives, into a world where they might not survive.

This one, however, Taylani, her master called her... had a spirit that seemed impossible to break, and she admired her for that. Isalie had long since lost any resilience against the world around her. She stops and just watches the other girl as she works. Taylani's movements were crude, to say the least. It was clear that manual labour was something she had not had to do with, and working with plants was also something foreign to her. A season ago, Isalie might have viewed such motions with a smile on her face, but now her eyes were blank and her emotionless expression gave away none of her thoughts, but she stared all the same.

[Taylani]

The light of Syna shown on the tent city of Endrykas and its surrounding plains brightly even though it was still early bells. The mild breeze that blew held the promise of winter but did not hold the biting cold that Taylani would have expected it to in Syliras. In her hands was the small basket, now getting worn from use, that she had purchased in her early days of learning foraging. The next one she might not buy, she might craft one for Fallan had began to show her the art of weaving and she found doing such things soothing.

However that was in the future, this was now and Taylani settles back on her haunches, her arms draping over her knees as she scanned the grasses. She was by no means an expert, and more often then note if the plants were unfamiliar she would pass them up out of the thinking of being better safe then sorry. She knew that there were other foraging teams that were more experienced then she, if she left something that was edible then they would grab it.

In Taylani's basket, though not much since the foraging time for the day had not started long ago, there was a small mixture of both edible plants but also other materials. A shiny stone, a garnet, and some grasses that were broad of leaf that Taylani could use in her crafting. Foraging was mostly about food, but also about other resources as well.

There was another, that was both like her but also so very different then she. She wasn't sure of the other person's name but she had seen her around the camp before and had met her on that Shahar person's hunting party. Yet so much had changed since then, Taylani was a completely different person even though that was only half a season ago. Taylani was no longer a captive for starters, Fallan had given her her freedom, and she had refused it. Oh she was a free woman no longer bound to him by agreement to carry his child -though she already did- and had the choice to return to Syliras, she just chose not to. Mostly for the child's sake.

So the former Dancer found herself out here, basket in hand, eying the telltale wild onion its dark green skinny shaft unmistakable. They tasted so wonderful, and if cut up into soups added just the right flavor..unfortunately since she had became pregnant she could not tolerate the smell of onion. Morning sickness was not a problem for Taylani, rarely does she feel even slightly nauseated, but the smell of onions every time causes her gorge to rise.

So instead of plucking it from the ground she moved on to the squat broad leaf that Fallan had shown her indicated a tuber and begins to dig around with her fingers, uncaring that her hands became dirty with soil. In the before times Taylani wouldn't have tried to make conversation with the other. Finding it too uncomfortable to force conversations. A small voice spoke up to remind her that she also found it uncomfortable to try and draw seemingly reticent people from their proverbial shells. However it wouldn't hurt her to try at least.

"You were with that Dawnwhisper man weren't you?"

[Akilah Windsong]

Akilah crouched on the ground, glaring at the grasses as they waved in the wind. Around her, she could see other women and men picking, some accompanied by children.

She should have paid more attention when her father took her foraging. For all of her hunting skills, she had nearly none in foraging. It bored her, sitting under the sun and looking at the grasses for tell-tale signs of edibility. It bored her still, but now she needed to pick it.

A purple flower danced in front of her and Akilah stared at it for a moment. There was something familiar about it. Digging through her memory, she remembered the roots of it were good for headaches. Not quite what she expected, but still useful. Eagerly, she dug into the the dirt with her trowel, the hard dirt resisting her first attempt before breaking. Careful not to break the prized roots, she stored it in her bag. Everyone else had a basket and she was reminded once more of how little she knew of foraging.

Her legs cramped and slowly, she stood up, wincing at the tingling feeling as the numbness wore off. Most around her were on their second, third basket. And she was still on bag number one. Maybe she should have left this to the experts.

Shaking her head, she moved to find another spot. No, she promised to properly try it this time. And by Zulrav, she would.

The wind teased her, pushing her, and Akilah moved with it. Ahead of her she could see a splotch of red, a colour she was still uncomfortable with.

But she recognized the person behind the hair. Pushing back her fears, she continued on toward Taylani and her companion.

"Faring better than me?" she asked congenially.

[Hope Dawnwhisper]

The task was monotonous, and she was as okay with monotonous; consistent movements that didn't give the young woman much chance to consider what she was doing. The only downside was her current lack of stamina, she had lost track of how long she had been doing this for, but it couldn't have been more than a bell or two and the exhaustion was already creeping up on her. Despite being well looked after up until now, she was still weak, and it was showing. Another issue was that, in order to be effective, she was often hunched up, which caused her back to ache and her legs to scream in protest.

Isalie's mind begins to wander. No. Not Isalie. Not anymore. Hope. Still, she does not fully understand what the word means, as it was spoken to her in a language she had not yet mastered, or why Shahar had even given it to her, but she has now come to accept it as her name, for the most part, at least, what these people would call her.

Picking up a berry which she was sure was not poisonous, she examines it for a moment. A frown appears on her brow as she realises one side of it had been eaten into, or it was rotten. Throwing it away, she wonders how many other berries she had picked would also be inedible, having not carefully examined them all. She wonders the reaction Shahar and Khida might have to her returning with a basket full of useless food, another thing Isalie had not cared enough about to put her mind properly to the task.

The familiar sound of someone speaking the Common tongue behind her reminds the runaway slave that she was not the only captive to be sold to a Drykas. She had seen many around the encampment, but had barely spoken to any; she had not even really spoken to Shahar or his bondmate since her arrival. Though her grasp of the Common language is not up to the standard of a native speaker, it was the only language she had spoken for the past four seasons or so, and she is surprised at how welcome the sound is. She turns to look at the speaker.

"Yes." Comes her simple reply, and she begins to turn away and back to her work, but her back twitches in protest. Attempting a conversation was the lesser of two evils, she decides, despite her reservations, and she opens her mouth again to add more detail to her response. "I--" Another girl walks over and she falls silent, returning to her usual habit of nibbling on the loose skin on her dry lower lip. It is not hard to tell that she is nervous around the Drykas people, no matter how nice they all had been to her. At the new arrival's question however, she smiles nervously and shakes her head.

[Taylani]

Having pushed her red hair back over her shoulder, the braids helped to contain it somewhat but not fully, Taylani looked up at the new comer. Though she had been given her freedom, and she no longer was captive and had even decided to willingly stay here with Fallan, did not mean that she suddenly trusted the Drykas. Akiliah was familiar to her at the very least so she was able to give a gentle inhalation and offer a small smile.

"A little, tubers mostly..some things that I thought I might be able to incorporate into some jewelry." Taylani showed her own small basket, littered with the crunchy roots that Fallan's strider loved so well, and the occasional shell or bone found upon the ground. Sometimes foraging also meant finding things that people had lost in the Run that Endrykas had made.

She gestured toward the thin long line leaf poking straight from the ground. "Those are wild onions..I can't pick them.." She grimaced a little and held a hand to her stomach. "They are delicious and normally I love them..but these days I can't even smell them without being a little sick." As she offered the 'bounty' to either of the other two foragers she made sure that she stood and moved several feet away to keep the odor from her nose.

Squatting in her new location, Taylani carefully moved the tall grass aside, hoping to spot something that was hidden beneath. There nestled into the ground was an empty nest of some bird or another. The lone egg in it surely was gone bad..if it didn't hatch in the spring when normal birds hatched then it certainly was bad. However, Taylani wondered how long were eggs laid for before hatching? Could this be a fresh laid egg waiting for the coming spring? She had no idea, and thought it kind of odd that an egg would survive out here where horse hooves, predators and simply animals running would trample it. So just in case she scooped the egg up and put it in her basket gently. If it was rotten they would be able to smell it when they cracked it open.

[Hope Dawnwhisper]

* Hope * * Read MeOkay.. new year, new posting habits: tense is gonna change to past now >.> Akilah - Given that a month has passed, we're going to continue posting in order to keep this thread moving. You’re welcome to slot back in at any point. It was nice, Hope found, to be sitting near another whom she knew was a native Syliran. Hope was far from that, but she had spent long enough there to have picked up the dialect. Her grasp on the Common Tongue was nothing on her command over Myrian, but it was a substantial amount better than what she was able to say in the Pavi language. Shahar was slowly trying to teach her, and she was slowly learning, but she could in no way have a full conversation, only say the odd word in broken syntax. Hope heard the mention of onions and instantly glanced up and over to follow the direction of the other woman’s gesture. Though they were not her favourite type of food, they were certainly ones she enjoyed. She didn’t move, however, instead she glanced up to the third young woman to see whether or not she would approach the tuber vegetables. She didn’t, and Hope slowly pushed herself up, careful not to move too fast, lest she became dizzy or hurt her legs, which were close to cramping. She gave the other two a relatively wide birth before sitting back down on the ground beside the onions. She made no effort to pick any of the onions yet, as she watches the woman who had directed her over here. Hope’s long, mousey brown hair brushed against her arm as she tilted her head to the side to inspect the woman, her stomach first, where a hand was resting, and then her face. Yes, she definitely remembered the woman from the Captive’s Pavilion, and she had since seen her around Endrykas, sometimes with a man who Hope supposed was her owner. Had this man done this to her? "You’re pregnant?… uh… you’re… there’s a baby?" She knew the Drykas must have taken Sylirans for a reason, though she had never really known, or wanted to know, why. She had just assumed that they wanted more slaves. Was that what it was, that this woman was being used by the man who bought her in such a manner? "With baby before or after coming to Endrykas?" They young girl spoke again, offering probably more communication of her on volition than she had done since arriving in this tent city. And she asked purely because she needed to know the answer. Conscious that she was beginning to stare, Hope quickly averted her eyes and dug her fingers into the ground while her other hand grasped at the stem. With her fingers, she pushed the soil and mud away from the tuber, hoping to ease the onion out more easily as she pulled t with her other hand. It was slow work, and probably unnecessary, but it meant that Hope would most likely not hurt her hands, or have them grow calloused, from pulling at a root that wouldn’t budge.

[Taylani]

Taylani continued to dig at the creep of tubers, fleshy white roots popping up with every pull. She no longer cared if she calloused her hands, before she might have but now that she had agreed to stay with the Drykas, and they all had calloused hands for the work out here was hard. She dropped the tubers in her basket minding the suspicious egg in there. The other woman's words, broken by a language she sure wasn't Pavi but the other woman explained further and Taylani smiled.

"Yes I am pregnant." She emphasised the common word for Pregnant, almost wishing she knew the Pavi word. She really needed to work on her Pavi but those who were fluent in Pavi were not always fluent in common. She gave the other woman a curious look, "After of course. That was the whole reason they have been taking captives. For babies." Did the Shahar man not explain this to Isalie? Fallan had been quite clear from the first that her job was to give him children. She grimaced at the memory of that conversation, so much said so wrong.

[Hope Dawnwhisper]

* Hope * * Hope spent a moment to digest the new word; it wasn’t one of the Pavi language, she thought, but her Common was by no means perfect, and she was happy to expand her vocabulary there too. After all, no one here spoke Myrian, that she knew of, and in order to communicate at all she had to work on both of her poorer languages. "Pregnant…" she repeated, working to exact the pronunciation as she pulled the onion free from the soil. Putting it in her basket, she didn’t have long to mull over the word, however, when Taylani continued to explain. Hope said nothing for a moment, and she dug one more hand back into the soil, close to where her hand had been before. Gently, she kneaded at the ground, pushing the soil to make it easier once again. The method worked, and she was pleased at the opportunity to take her time. Previously, when she had been back in Syliras, if she were to dig anything up, it would have been a fast job, lest she be caught. But now that she was allowed, nay - expected, to dislodge the tubers from the ground and pick the berries off of their stems, she was slow to work. Her weak muscles were also a factor - even something as simple as this was tiring out the still malnourished young woman. Sometimes the soil parted easily, but others, it was pressed hard together and it took effort on her part to pry the onion out. But it gave her time to think and mull over what she had been told. That’s why they were taking captives? That’s why I’m here, why Shahar bought me? Though the auctioneer had spoken partly in Common for her benefit, she had not had the presence of mind to pay enough attention to what was actually being said at the time. She tried to think back to that fateful day, but could not recall what was said. It makes sense… there were so many women in the Pavilion. Men cannot carry children. But… Shahar had never touched her. Not in anger, or for punishment, and certainly not in any way that left Hope thinking that she was to bear his children. She wasn't even sure that he touched Khida in that manner either. Ordinarily, Hope would have feigned a misunderstanding of what was said in order to halt the communication, but now she needed answers, needed to know more. She pulled up the second onion and placed it beside the first before turning back to the pregnant Syliran. "He told me nothing of the sort…" she said quietly, "Or… he hasn’t tried either. That’s why we’re here?"

[Gale Austin McCenry]

Hope Dawnwhisper :

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Foraging	+2 XP
Socialization	+1 XP
Observation	+2 XP

Items/Consequences

Item	Description
2 Onions	N/A
Handful of berries	N/A

.


Lores

■	Feeling pity for others
■	Recognizing spirit
■	Identifying bad berries Example
■	Holding conversations in a different languages
■	Taylani: Can’t pick Onions
■	Noticing someone who is pregnant
■	How to harvest onions without hurting your hands
■	Captives used to reproduce

Comments
You didn't describe what types of berries you were picking, so you can go ahead and choose what types they are. But I only gave you a handful because the fact that you didn't check most for them being rotten.

Akilah Windsong :

You haven’t paid your seasonal expenses yet! Please notify me when you update your ledger and I’ll put your grade up as soon as possible.

Additional Comments

Nice thread, I really enjoyed it. Sad though that it came to an end so soon. Keep up the good work though! If you have any questions or concerns regarding the grade, please don’t hesitate to PM me!