PM to join Horseplay (Waisana)

[Hope Dawnwhisper]

* Hope * * 14th Day of Winter, 513AV Since Shahar had introduced Hope to the mare, Dainellas, and she had also had more of an opportunity to spend time with the three growing kittens he had found, Hope had begun to return to something more… natural snd normal. She was still not functioning on the same level that she used to, and her movements were more lethargic than the rest of the population of Endrykas, but there was light, effort and a returning sense of will to do more than vegetate all day long, staring at the ground. Such activities still occupied a fair portion of her time, as Shahar and Khida both had their own things to do and did not have the time or desire to keep Hope occupied for her every waking moment. If anything, the captive was happy to sleep longer than most of the Drykas – she was, after all, still recovering her strength. Today, however, Shahar was away by the time she rose; possibly with Khida or Slither, his other slave. So she planned to visit Dainellas, and get further acquainted with the horse. Shahar had taken care to distinguish between the fact that his Strider was his, and the mare was one that she was to groom. She wouldn’t go as far as to say that the creature was hers, but she was happy to avoid Shahar’s ill-tempered beast when possible. Dainellas seemed to enjoy Hope’s company, and Hope definitely enjoyed the relative silent company she received from Dainellas. The walk from the group of Dawnwhisper tents to where many of the Drykas horses were kept was not far, and Hope was relieved to find that not many others were around. She was beginning to trust and care for those in her own Pavilion, but she was still mistrustful of the strange nature of the peoples in this land: she was not one of them. Up ahead, Hope spied the coat of the mare and her pace increased a little in order to reach her faster, hoping that she would not pass the Strider on her way. Another horse caught her eye, however, one which was closer, and heading in her direction. Hope did not know this horse, but she knew that some might approach a human if just to receive some attention. A quick glance over told Hope that Dainellas was not aware of Hope’s arrival and she decided to wait, taking a few steps towards the new horse. “Hello,” She said in Pavi, before reverting to her native tongue, “Who are you, little horse?” As always, a small smile graced Hope’s lips as she tentatively reached out, offering her hand to be smelled. Then, after another step, she leant in to run her hand down the creature’s long neck. Taking her time, she looked over the horse’s markings, admiring the chestnut coat and long white socks, which extended up to the shoulder. “You’re not who I came here to see, but Dainellas will surely wait… I think she can share.”

[Waisana]

For once, Waisana was going to spend the day just doing something for herself. All she ever did was work in the healing tents day in, day out, rarely doing anything for herself. Well today was going to be the day where she just relaxed and gave her Strider some much needed attention. Poor Drusine was probably feeling very neglected lately and the young woman intended to remedy the situation.

It wasn’t a long walk from her Pavilion to where the Drykas horses were kept. She had to weave her way in between the other tents but it was something that she hardly noticed anymore. She had spent many years living in Endrykas, her family moving when the tent city did, and so she didn’t think anything unusual about navigating in such an environment. It was a way of life that she was used to and comfortable with as well though she didn’t leave the healing tents too often during the day. It amazed her just how busy the tent city was! Apparently, she always missed the hustle and bustle when she was stuck working.

When she got to the horses, she found that there was a girl amongst them. Actually, she was petting Waisana’s Strider. Her hands were running over Drusine’s neck and for a moment the healer actually felt a pang of jealousy. Had her horse approached the girl? Probably. The mare had been a bit neglected lately so it made sense that she’d seek out some attention. No need to feel negatively towards the stranger.

Coming up to stand beside the girl and her own horse, Waisana smiled at her. ”Hi,” she greeted the girl shyly, before turning her attention to her Strider. ”Hello, pretty girl. Did you miss me? You being looked after here?” she crooned, resting her hand on the mare’s nose. Her eyes turned to the one who’d been petting her mare and smiled. ”I don’t mind you petting her, you know. I think she’s been a bit lonely but I appreciate you giving her a bit of attention. Even though she isn’t yours.” The last part was a not so subtle reminder that the Strider was hers and that while this young woman could pet her, that was all she could do.

[Hope Dawnwhisper]

* Hope * * The field was relatively quiet, save the wind blowing and the occasional snorts of the horses around, so Hope heard the footsteps approaching a little while before a girl appeared by her side, clearly greeting her own horse. Hope instantly dropped her hand and took a step back, away from the creature, through from the other woman’s reaction, and the fact that she was speaking in softy tones to the horse, rather than harsh tones to her, the non-Drykas guessed that this new arrival wasn’t upset with her stroking the horse and giving it attention. Despite her long-ingrained instincts to flee, Hope remained where she was, a small smile remaining on her lips as she watched the two interact. Then the other girl turns to Hope and continues to speak in Pavi. She latches onto the odd word: “Hello… me… yours…” but the majority of what was said goes in one ear and straight out of the other and she is unable to make sense of it at all. Was she being told off? Her face dropped, both at the lack of ability to communicate, and the possible trouble she was in, and she opened and closed her mouth a few times before finally uttering a quick, “Sorry.” That word had been one of the first she had learnt of Pavi, and was quite possibly the word she used most often in any of her three languages. She scratched at her arm unconsciously as her eyes darted between the girl, the horse and Dainellas, who, having just spotted her, was whinnying and looked like she was about to trot over. She relaxed a little bit, glad of the possibility of escaping to be with the mare she knew, in case the meeting turned sour. Though, looking at the girl, she couldn’t have been older than 16 or 17. Hope was small for her age; the malnutrition of the years would forever have lasting effects on her stature, but this young woman was clearly well looked after and had a bit more growing to do. Despite her reservations, the Drykas women had been nothing but kind to her since she had been brought here. From the expression on the girl’s face, it seemed like that trend would continue. She gestured noncommittally at the girl’s horse, mumbled, “Your horse…” she paused, trying to think of the word, trying to remember if Shahar had taught it to her once, when showing Hope how to brush Dainellas, but she could not drag the word up. She sighed in frustration, “Horse is pretty …” she said, "And friendly." Knowing how attached the Drykas peoples were to their horses, or… striders, as they called some of them, Hope thought that she would attempt to compliment the beast, which would in turn act as a compliment to the girl herself. The logic was almost flawless, she thought to herself; people had strong pride in their possessions, and no pride as strong as their living possessions. The Drykas would likely be nothing without their mounts to ride upon.

[Waisana]

The other girl's expression was one of deep concentration as Waisana spoke and so she realised very quickly that the other had a problem understanding the language. The look in her eyes reminded her of the Myrian girl that she had come across a few years before in a similar situation. Like then, she had found the stranger amongst the horses but this girl she hadn't been able to pick out as foreign. When she tried to speak, the Drykas girl's suspicions were confirmed as she switched to Common, a language that she was lucky enough to know herself. Telling captives apart from native Drykas was still surprisingly difficult until one talked to them but she felt a bit stupid for her speech (short though it had been) in Pavi.

"Sorry! I didn't think that you were... It doesn't matter. I said that I didn't mind you petting her because I think she was in need of attention," the girl explained in the new language, her hands busying themselves petting the Strider in the absence of gestures. "Usually I'd be possessive of her but... I'll make an exception." The teen smiled in a friendly way down at the timid young woman. Girl was probably a more accurate description as she was probably younger than Waisana though she couldn't be sure. Perhaps she was just small. The other was obviously nervous of her so the Drykas hoped that if she made lots of friendly conversation, she would be less ill at ease.

"I think that you meant to say she was pretty and friendly," the girl explained, her hands signing slowly when she spoke in Pavi so that the other could catch them. "I'm Waisana by the way and you are?" The healer tilted her head to the side slightly, an eyebrow raised in question as she awaited a reply. Her smile was warm and kind. She didn't want the girl to be frightened of her after all. She was no scary Myrian like Kaie had been for her but it must be just as intimidating for the other to find herself in such a situation. Waisana could sympathise somewhat, at least where meeting a possibly scary stranger was involved.

[Hope Dawnwhisper]

* Hope * * As the other girl spoke, in a language she understood, Hope did little to hide her relief that the Drykas girl wasn't upset with her for approaching a horse that didn't belong to her. Hope had, in all honesty, been the innocent party in this, as the mare had approached her first, and the runaway slave couldn't resist meeting a new animal, no matter who it belonged to. Especially when it seemed to be as good natured as this one. She smiled sheepishly, "She does like attention... I was just coming over to see Dainellas," Hope pointed towards the still approaching mare, "Shahar said I was to look after her, he's teaching me how to clean her... with the hoof-pick... currycomb?" Her intonation rose in a questioning tone as she repeated the words Shahar had taught her, hoping the pronunciation was right. “Pretty...” She repeated as she watched the girl speak the words, glad to be taught the language; it was humiliating that she had been in the tent city for so long and had such a poor grasp of the language. In Syliras, she'd had no choice but to learn that tongue, because so few, if any spoke Myrian. Here, however, most spoke Common, so she had few opportunities. Prevent in her own pavilion, where the members didn't share a single fluent language, she spoke Common most. “Friendly... Thank you.” She added a sign of gratitude to her utterance, remembering the sign just in time. This other girl was clearly making an effort not to intimidate the captive, and she hoped the gesture showed her appreciation of the kindness. For a moment, Hope wondered why she shied away from the people in the city - she had yet to meet a cruel person (Khida, perhaps, came closest, but Hope was learning that was just more of the Kelvic's no-nonsense nature, rather than her actual dislike) and her fears were turning out to be unfounded. She nodded in recognition of the girl's name, "I'm called Isa- Hope," she corrected herself, sometimes forgetting that Shahar had renamed her soon after they first met. It hadn't been much of a surprise to her that the man had given her a new name; Hope had never offered her old name to any Drykas since she had been captured, not even Shahar or Khida had asked. But the name she had held onto for eighteen years or so was hard to let go - part of her identity had died when the Drykas came for her, and the new name reflected that loss. "Hope, they called me, soon after I was bought." The word meant nothing to her... she had just assumed that the name was something more Drykas in origin than Isalie, rather than being an actual word in the Pavi tongue. But she accepted it.

[Waisana]

OOCI'm so so sorry for the delay. Forgive me if it takes time to get back into things. My posts might be a little short for awhile as a result.
The girl began to try to explain her petting of Waisana's Strider but the healer waved the explanation away good naturedly and smiling. She did glance around at the mare that she indicated though trying to link the horse to an owner in her mind. The name Shahar was unfamiliar to her but she assumed that he was the Drykas who had adopted the girl in front of her into his family and that the other horse belonged to him. She returned her attention to the captive as she tried to sound out words in Pavi. Waisana nodded encouragingly to show her that she was making sense. After that she sounded out the words that the Drykas maiden had taught her. She was a quick study and was clearly glad for the additions to her vocabulary.

"You're welcome. You seem to be able to repeat what I'm saying at least so you should be able to talk like one of us soon enough," she complimented her, her hands moving to sign encouragement before she realised that it would make no sense with the Common tongue. The moment of confusion gave her pause. "You'll pick it up quickly when you've been around us long enough." After she said it, Waisana frowned. Perhaps it hadn't been the best thing to say to the girl. She might have hopes of going home (something that wouldn't come to pass) and it wasn't kind to remind her of the fact that her stay with them was going to be a long one. She'd already said it though and if the captive somehow hadn't noticed then trying to fix it would probably just make matters worse. Much worse.

She stroked her Strider, nuzzling against Drusine slightly as she listened to the girl's introduction. "Hope." It was another Drykas word that the girl obviously knew. Strange that Waisana had been thinking that the captive might have hope and her name was in fact, Hope. When she explained that it was a name that had been given to her when she came to them, the healer looked at her in surprise. Did she even know what her name meant? Probably not seeing as she'd inserted the Pavi word into a sentence of Common. "It's your new name then? Hope? That's what it means if you didn't know. Did this Shahar you mentioned call you that, or someone else?" she asked curiously. It was certainly an interesting name. Hope personified. Perhaps whoever had bought her had seen her as their future hope. It made sense considering the purpose of the captives in the first place. They were the hopes of the Drykas after all.

[Hope Dawnwhisper]

* Hope * * The smile that came to Hope's lips were natural, and a slight blush of colour flushed her cheeks at the compliment that the Drykas girl paid her. She couldn't say that she was trying particularly hard to learn the language; most if it seemed to happen merely through osmosis, but that was through Hope's own pathetic inability to pay attention to the words of her new owner. "Is the three language I am learning," she said by way of explanation, which probably also gave Waisana a hint as to her less than satisfactory grasp on the Common Tongue. "It is best to learn around the people. Not in books." Especially if you couldn't read... She noticed the hand movements that the girl added to the common words, and she frowned, her hand stopping momentarily in the stroking motion along the horse's neck. "The hands, they move to make language too?" It was half a question, half a statement. She had seen it so often among these peoples - hand motions accompanied almost everything they said, and even sometimes replaced the spoken word entirely. She wondered if the Drykas people could have an entire conversation by just using their hands. It might not carry the grammar, but the meaning would be there, surely. "I see people using the hands often." Her hand dropped away entirely from the girl's horse as the pair nuzzled, and she smiled at the connection that the pair clearly had. She wondered if Shahar would ever let her cultivate a similar bond with Dainellas... one that she saw often in the Sea of Grass, where the people seemed more comfortable with there mounts than they sometimes did with people. Then, the girl repeated her name, with a much more fluid accent. What surprised Hope, however, was that the Pavi word had a Common translation - it wasn't just some meaningless Dykas name that Shahar had given her. There was meaning. Hope. The runaway slave had no idea what Hope meant, in Pavi or Common, but if it could be translated, it could probably be translated into Myrian too, where she might have an understanding of it. The name - or word - clearly meant something to Waisana, as was evident from the soft smile that had graced the girl's lips, as if pleased that one of the captives had been given such a potent name. It was this burning curiosity to know what was so important that she had been stripped of her old name for a new one that drove a the pale human to ask, "What is.... Hope? I've never heard that word in this tongue as well." And, as if by instinct, she hastened to add, "Sorry." OOCI think my delay is a million times worse than yours. I'm a terrible person D:

[Waisana]

The girl seemed pleased by Waisana's praise of her Pavi skills. The healer couldn't help returning her smile, happy with Hope's genuine pleasure. The smile dropped into an expression of surprise, eyebrows raising at the knowledge that Pavi was the girl's third language. "You speak three languages? Pavi, Common and... what else?" The teen nodded in agreement regarding the comment on learning from people rather than books. Not that she could learn anything from books. The Drykas didn't have a written language and she'd learned Common from speaking it. No one had ever taught her the Common letters so she couldn't read anything in the language. It seemed that the girl could although perhaps she could only read in the third language that she could speak. Presumably the third language was her native one and so she no doubt had a fuller grasp of that, or so the Drykas assumed.

The half-question threw her for a moment, leaving her unsure about what the girl was talking about. Her brows knit together briefly before her forehead smoothed and she made a sound of understanding. "Yes, the hands make language, in Pavi at least. Sometimes people move their hands when they speak Common but it does not mean the same. It doesn't... add to what they say. It's different in Pavi. The way you hold your body can mean something in Pavi," she explained, her hands moving as she spoke. She glanced down at them and then shoved them behind her back where they couldn't make silly, nonsensical gestures. They were meaningless but the captive had obviously picked up on them even as the Opal spoke Common. There was no point confusing the girl. "There cannot be Pavi without the hands."

She allowed her hands to drift back to the horse, occupying them with showing love to the Strider. There was little mischief that they could get into doing that. There would be no ridiculous gestures that were somewhere in between Pavi and nonsense as she tried to speak Common with them. They would only be allowed to stroke the mare's face, tangle gently in her mane, or stroking down her neck. She was content to give attention to the horse as she waited for Hope to say something, occasionally making soft clicking sounds in Drusine's ear. There was a pause in her petting at the question of the meaning of Hope, the eyes of the Drykas darting from side to side as she tried to think of what the word meant and how to explain it.

"Don't be sorry," she murmured absentmindedly as she sought a description in her head, a look of frustration crossing her features. It wasn't looking forward to something, that was expectation. It was more wanting something to happen, something that might not come about but then... how did that fit as a person's name. "Hope is good, it means... when you want something to happen... no, that's not it. It's... I'll give an example. Drykas have lost many in plague. We need more... children. Men need wives, mothers. Captives like... like you give the Drykas a chance for a future. You are hope for future because might bring it about. Yes, that's the best way I can explain it." The teen shrugged her shoulders to show that that was the best she could do before resuming her petting of the horse.

[Dove Brown]

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Waisana

Skills

• Land Navigation 1
• Socialisation 4
• Animal Husbandry 1
• Investigation 1
• Teaching 2

Lores

• Hope: met petting my strider
• Hope: a captive
• Hope: speaks three languages

 

Hope Dawnwhisper

Skills

• XP

Lores

• Lore:

Miscellaneous

• Mizas (+/-) | Amount
  
• Item Purchased (+/-) | Amount
  
• Item Sold (+/-) | Amount

Withheld dueto retirement.

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