Closed The Chiet Girl (Khara)

[Zhol]

|.38th Summer, 514

“How about Dàimh?”

Zhol’s fingers carefully worked the strands of mane, guiding the tangles through the bristles of the brush, small segments gripped between his knuckles ready to be woven into the braided patterns his mother had made him practice upon ropes and upon his sisters before anyone would let him anywhere near a live strider. The process was so practiced, so carved into his muscles and bones that he didn’t need to recite the childish poem about leaping the first log and crawling beneath the second, and yet he did so under his breath anyway. Old habits died hard.

“It means ‘kinship’,” he explained, constructing the next plait carefully. The colt’s mane was not long enough to form as intricate a pattern as he would have liked, but it would grow soon enough if left to it’s own devices, and what Zhol’s efforts may have lacked in aesthetics they more than made up for in practicality: a plaited mane was far less likely to snag twigs and brambles, and was much easier to keep presentable. A little effort now to make life easier for the grooms tomorrow seemed a perfectly reasonable exchange to Zhol; and besides, anything that kept the colt in a good mood made everyone’s life easier.

The colt blew out a protest between his sputtering lips, though he was careful enough not to move his head so much that it disrupted Zhol’s efforts. “Well I thought it was a good name,” Zhol muttered defensively, using a short length of cord to secure his plaitwork in place. He stopped, his arms folding across his chest. “I might just call you dinner, if you’re going to be disagreeable like that,” he added, with a half-serious glare.

With a snort, the colt bumped the side of his muzzle against Zhol’s shoulder; Zhol winced, but couldn’t help the grunt of laughter that snuck out. ”Fine, fine,” he conceded, setting to work with the brush again. ”I’ll keep thinking until I come up with something better.”

This template was made by Khara. She was bribed with coffee and jammy dodgers.

[Khara]

The day had been long and sadly unfruitful. The walk back to Skyinarta had seemed to take ages and Khara and the other game scouts felt every footfall. Three of them had set out in search of deer, venturing to the edge of The Unforgiving before being forced to turn back, ever aware of the dwindling Summer and the harshness that the colder months would bring. The sight of the Sanikas Gates brought out a collective sigh from the group and gave the smallest of which pause to watch the others enter and pass beyond. They'd be off in search of food in the kitchens, hoping to push through the Dek that no doubt would be gathering at this time. It was somewhere Khara always felt reluctant to go after a day that could only be best described as a miserable failure. Food was earned and the small band had done anything but.

A sigh left as she turned and watched Syna's last rays fade from view, slipping below the mountains the girl called home. Another heavy breath was taken as she turned back towards the gates, but stopped short as movement caught her eye. Someone was still working within the Skyhigh Stables. A small smile came to the girl despite her weariness as an inkling as to who it might be was realized.

Khara had only met the boy from Cyphrus last Season, and under rather unpleasant circumstances all things considered, but somehow it made him one of the few Avora who actually treated her as an equal. It felt wrong, really, but trying to explain all that to the once-outsider had been like asking a falcon not to fly. He'd listen for a while but always ended up acting in a way that was only natural for him.

"Hey, horse boy!" The words left her playfully, chirped out in Nari that she was never sure if Zhol fully comprehended or not. It was forced through the exhaustion that threatened to overtake her, but it still seemed worth it as she entered the stables and spied the trainer.

"Was it a rough day?" Common always felt awkward to her, each word feeling strange on the tongue and far too unnatural. Khara knew very well that she didn't always get the phrasing right, especially given the few opportunities she had to speak the language. Zhol's vague comprehension of Nari seemed to force it upon her, for better or worse.

[Zhol]

|.

Zhol turned, or at least, angled himself as much as he was able with his hands occupied, and looked awkwardly over the shoulder that really didn't want him to be twisting in the way that he was. He didn't need to see the Chiet girl to know that it was her; there was something instantly recognisable about the chirp of her voice and the broken fragments of common she strung together to make her meaning. It always brought a smile to his lips; not because it amused him, but rather because there was something sweet and endearing about her willingness to persist for his benefit, despite her difficulty.

Not that he would ever say that to her, of course, entertaining as it would be to watch her squirm in the face of a compliment from an Avora. Nor would he ever admit that her occasional appearances in his day automatically became the highlight. She had enough ammunition to use against him already without him providing that little arrow to her quiver.

He looked down at himself; at the clothes that still bore the scuffs and stains of his earlier tumble. He flashed her a smile. "The day happened very roughly," he agreed, butchering Khara's native language despite his best efforts.

He shifted a little, just enough to ease the discomfort in his shoulder, and to make his handiwork a little easier to see. "I can do yours next, if you like," he offered. Common was the middle ground for the two of them: neither used it perfectly, but at least it was less abusive on Khara's ears than his attempts at Nari. Idly, he wondered how she would fare trying to speak his home language.

He frowned a little as he regarded the bedraggled and weary Khara, her hair fluffed and tangled by a hard day's work. He nodded his head towards the colt. "Your mane is in even more of a state than his was."

This template was made by Khara. She was bribed with coffee and jammy dodgers.

[Khara]

A visible cringe crossed Khara's face as Zhol attempted to speak in Nari. He'd progressed quite well in the season she had known him for but it still sounded horrible. Sure he managed to get the actual words mostly correct, but the accent was just... awful. Perhaps not really worth the facial expression, but really the girl couldn't help herself some days. If others had been around she wouldn't have even considered the bit of overacting, he was an Avora after all.

His next bit about her hair brought her hands up to it, tugging on the copper strands in an effort to smooth out the day's wear and humidity from it. It was a losing battle that would only be hoped to be won after a wash and she ended up idling twisting a strand in her fingers as she let her eyes fall away from him.

"That is not necessary." The horse is probably more worth your time. She left the second thought unspoken, happy to hear her internal thoughts processed in her familiar tongue, though the slump in her shoulders that accompanied it was clearly visible.

An unproductive scouting wasn't entirely out of the normal, but ever since the famines of the last Winter, each felt as if she was letting the entirety of Skyinarta down: A population that included those that weren't born within it's caverns, present company included.

The thought wasn't easily pushed down, just barely beneath a surface of curiosity that reared itself as she looked back up at Zhol and the horse he was currently standing near.

"Is that the new one you spoke of? Is he still giving you troubles?" She inched forward slowly, her steps light and uncertain. The horses and ponies within the Skyhigh stables seemed so alien to her. They had been there all her life, certainly, but why anyone would choose to ride such a creature when there were Wind Eagles seemed strange, even if the majority didn't have an option. The Wind Eagles chose their riders and were able to communicate telepathically with those they deemed worthy, any animal that didn't seemed so much lesser.

[Zhol]

|.

"You're no trouble at all, are you, friend?"

The words tumbled out in Pavi so easily; such a natural reflex to speak to the colt as he had been almost all day. Immediately he grimaced, and could already feel the heat rising to his face. It was the least he could do to always talk Common around the Inarta: to at least give them a shred of a chance to understand his words. It felt wrong, rude even; like he was intentionally hiding that which he had absolutely no reason to hide. It was difficult though, thinking in Pavi and speaking in Common, all the while surrounded by utterings of Nari that he felt so guilty that he still could not understand.

He offered an apologetic smile, though it was a long way from feeling like enough. "We reached an understanding," he explained. "Now we are -"

He hesitated, rifling through the scattered Nari words that he half-remembered. "Friendship?" he tried, though he knew it wasn't quite right the second it escaped from his lips. He tried to push that aside; tried to let himself rest assured that his best effort was good enough.

"Come and say hello," he enthused, waving Khara closer. "Don't worry, everything's fine now. He won't hurt you."

His voice turned into a half whisper, his fingers gesturing the sign for a firm instruction to the colt. "Don't hurt her," he insisted. "I like her, she's nice."

This template was made by Khara. She was bribed with coffee and jammy dodgers.

[Khara]

Don't worry. Easy for him to say. The girls' brows knitted as she continued her slow approach, a cautionary glance cast into each shadowed stall, expecting the stablemaster to shoo her away at a moment's notice.

"I believe you wanted to say that the two of you are becoming...""Friends." If switching from Nari to Common for an overall thought was difficult, having to stop midway to try and force herself to speak in bits and pieces of both was maddening. Still, Khara gave it her best effort. It wasn't just that Zhol was an Avora and his status practically demanded she make the attempt at making his life easier, there was a genuine want to help the boy feel more comfortable in his new homelands.

Khara came to a stop just outside the stall where Zhol and his horse friend were, the fingertips of both her hands interweaving with each other in small movements as she contemplated removing the quiver and bow from where they hung on her shoulder, their weight becoming more noticeable each tick that she remained still for.

"Have you been here all day? I think you've missed supper, unless you want to eat with the Dek. Though I think they would still make you something more better in the kitchens if you arrived now." Shyke, Khara! He probably knows that already. Just because you're tired doesn't mean you get to babble.

It was odd, with any other Avora she would have felt ashamed for saying such a thing, but Zhol had always seemed grateful for any reminders she had given him. It sometimes left her wondering if he was only humoring her, taking pity on the Chiet girl he had unwittingly helped out before he had learned better. If he had learned better; if not, it was only a matter of time before she would have to bring an abrupt halt to the playful teasing of the outsider.

Khara found a frown threatening to tug at her lips as she thought of Zhol treating her much like the other Avora did. A small smile was forced in its place as she nodded back towards the horse, "Does he have a name?"

[Zhol]

|.

Zhol's ears took on a distinct pink tinge, and his willpower was barely enough to stop it from spreading further. Khara's assumption was right; he had missed the evening meal, but had shrugged it off as his own foolish fault for getting so distracted, and had resigned to allow his empty stomach to serve as encouragement not to let it happen again. The notion of asking the kitchens for special treatment, of inconveniencing others to make up for his own mistake, had never even entered his mind; nor did he want it to.

That part of Wind Reach he struggled with most of all. He was of course accustomed to the idea of certain members of society being respected above others, and he could certainly see the wisdom in venerating skill and social value rather than breeding and heritage as was practised in other parts of the world. His difficulty came with the acceptance that he was one of those "better" people. To him, his knowledge of horses was as trivial as knowing how to tie one's own shoes; to him, he was no more valuable than someone like Khara, who spent each day actively benefiting the city, rather than the small minority who relied upon the stables' services; no more valuable than the stable hands, than the educators who taught the Inara children; and yet their society deemed him so.

The worst part was that Khara looked at him as if he believed that assertion was true: as if some misspoken word or accidental insult would earn the same reprisal from him as it would from any other Avora. He had hoped that over the last few seasons she would have learned otherwise; but she had not, and his heart sank at that realisation.

An idle thought floated through his mind, of how things might change if she achieved her aspirations of becoming a huntress, or perhaps even if one of the Wind Eagles saw fit to choose her as it's rider. How would she react towards him if society deemed them equal, or if she was deemed his better? Would she treat him the way she expected to be treated? Would her treating him as equal in agreement with society feel the same as if she did in spite of it?

She was not the only one whose smile was engineered. "Not yet," he answered, beginning work on another segment of the colt's braid. "He doesn't even have an owner. He turned four in the spring, so we've only just begun to break him in. It'll be another year at least before he's big enough and strong enough to carry a rider long distance, and no one in these parts would want to buy a horse who can't do that."

His brow furrowed. With eagles to ride, horses were beasts of burden and unwilling necessity here; slaves to the function that they could fill. It was that reason above all that Zhol sought a name for the colt: perhaps the others were content to consider it a nameless thing until an owner came along, but that did not mean that Zhol would do the same. He would not treat the Chiet or the Dek as inferior; nor would he do the same with the horses he trained.

"Any ideas?" he asked, glancing in Khara's direction. "He hasn't liked any of the suggestions I've come up with so far."

This template was made by Khara. She was bribed with coffee and jammy dodgers.

[Khara]

"He speaks with you?" Despite the difficulties she had with the language, her skepticism was still clear, not nearly needing the arched eyebrow that tugged her expression somewhere between confusion and disbelief to add to the effect.

Her knowledge of horses only went as far as the facts that they existed, they were taller than she was, they could be temperamental, and that Zhol worked with them. While she had never heard of them being capable of communicating with Inarta or other races, she supposed it wasn't entirely improbable. You didn't need to actually speak to get your point across, after all. The birds she had learned to handle as a Yasi had taught her that lesson all too quickly.

"I'm not very good with naming. Even the magpie I had when I was littler I only called 'Mags', he did not seem to mind so much." The small laugh that began to leave her died quickly as a small frown took it's place. She hadn't thought of the bird her mother had given her for ages, it had been left behind when she went to live among the other Yasi. Her mother must have kept it for a while but she never really knew of it's fate. The thought was suddenly troubling, as she suddenly felt her childhood pet had deserved far better than to be forgotten by an absentminded girl. You're just tired, that's all. Stop trying to make blizzards out of mist.

Another round of apologies lurked on the tip of her tongue as she looked back towards Zhol but were cut short as he noticed a strangeness to the way he moved, his motions clearly favoring one arm to the other. It was subtle, and at first Khara hadn't even been sure she had seen it, but as she caught a slight cringe ghost across the Avora's features her suspicions were confirmed.

"Perhaps you should name him..." She let the word linger as she raced to try and find the appropriate word. You know this one! you really do. Come on! No not that one! The other one! Not meaning pinions, but... "Treasure."

A smile of triumph came to her as she put on an act that only Zhol really let her get away with. Both hands came to her hips and she stared at him, trying to muster her best stern expression. "Because he must be worth a lot if you are going to not only skip meals but ignore hurts as well."

[Zhol]

|.

Zhol's eyebrows climbed at her suggestion, and for a moment he was inclined to agree with her assessment of her naming abilities. He didn't even need the conveniently timed derisive snort from the colt to know that it would never tolerate such a flamboyantly emasculine name.

When her condemnation of his self-neglect hit however, it was all that Zhol could do to stop himself crumbling to the floor in red-faced shame. Perhaps there were other factors lurking beneath the surface as well, but between his mother, sisters, and cousins, Zhol had been exposed to the stern disapproval of women he respected too many times to do anything but buckle completely beneath it.

His eyes fell to the floor like a chastised child. "It's nothing," he offered in a sheepish half-mutter, hardly reassuring at all. "Just a few jarred muscles, and some cuts and bruises. I didn't even really fall that far."

"Pavi" | "Common" | "Nari"
This template was made by Khara. She was bribed with coffee and jammy dodgers.

[Khara]

Khara had never seen an Avora react the way Zhol did to her, the fact she considered him possibly a friend as opposed to someone who just tolerated her presence made it seem all the worse. In between glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one had seen the effects of their conversation and trying to come up with some way of taking back her quip about his possible injury she simply froze.

"I... I didn't mean..."It took a moment to realize the stammering had left her in Nari, probably doing nothing more than confusing the boy than actually helping to explain. And what is it you're going to explain exactly? That it isn't your place to question an Avora, even if you notice they might need help of some sort? That you're just a Chiet who failed at their job today who has no right to point out possible faults? That, even though he probably never would, he could have you punished for such a thing?

Khara found herself taking an instinctual step away before every memory of how Zhol had ever treated her smashed into the forethought of her mind and steadied her footing. No. He's not like that, the drifting yet that followed the thought was guiltily shoved aside as she realized her body language had taken on the equivalence of a startled rabbit.

A long deep breath was taken as she adjusted the quiver on her shoulder and ran a hand through her somewhat tangled mess of partially braided copper hair. "You can finish up here, if you like, and then we can go to the kitchens? Even bad days should end with supper." She paused to nod towards his shoulder. "Then maybe you will let me follow you to the infirmary? I need to get somethings from there."

It took every bit of patience she had to speak slowly and try to make sure each word came out at least somewhat correctly, in a tone that was more suitable to their statuses, and yet wouldn't give Zhol yet more reason to be awkward around her. Khara was holding in an entire story about a tumble through a bramble patch from that morning that wanted to come racing out of her. It had been forgotten about along with the numerous small abrasions that came from the incident until that moment. It felt foolish to use such a thing in an attempt to coax him into letting someone skilled assess his wound, but she had seen how pride could undo a person before. An injured upper caste member could easily find themselves among the Dek if they let such a thing fester and disrupt too much of their abilities to do their daily work. Or, at least, that's how the stories went.