A present for Verda

by **Drusilla** on March 3rd, 2015, 2:35 am

15th of Spring 515AV

Drusilla had left early to head towards the stables, only after checking on sleeping Bitta in his cage. His small steady breathing a huge relief to the Symenestra. It was like this everyday when she woke up, a wave of relief he had made it another night. A smiled crawled onto her face.

She hoped this meeting would go well. All winter it had eaten away at her, upsetting her Verda. While all was fine and well on her birthday, she still worried. The 'What ifs' drove her nuts. What if this? What if that? The only remedy to this was to confront this head on and visit Verda. She had even found a few objects Verda might like. Just small things, but hopefully they'd be good enough. She knew he owned very little and extravagant things were meaningless to him. Drusilla fiddled her thumbs. She also needed his opinion on something...For Chickadee...

She headed straight for the stables, no doubt he'd be there. Along with Pryza... Or Solo that was his name. She couldn't keep renaming everything. Approaching the stables her anxiety grew more and more, and then it hit her the horses. There were horses here... Bone breaking horses. Drusilla wanted to scurry up to safety but no, she would be brave! But should she just walk in or knock? While the stables were a public area, it felt like Zhol's home too... Taking a deep breath she walked in, "Verda? Are you here?" A horse made a noise and she jumped.

by **Zhol** on March 3rd, 2015, 3:03 am

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The sound of that familiar and long-absent voice made Zhol's face light up like the watchtowers at season change; the obnoxious bray from Bucky and the startled reaction from Drusilla immediately transformed the expression into a glower.

"Shut up, you stupid ass!" he yelled, turning his glare full-force on the insufferable mule, speaking to him in Common; Bucky didn't deserve the respect that Zhol showed the other horses by speaking to them in Pavi. He held his angry stare levelled at the beast of burden until it let out a disgruntled snort and shuffled around to face a different direction.

Satisfied that the equine was suitably reprimanded, he crossed the stables in swift, long strides. A surge of better judgement stopped him from flinging his arms around her in a squeezing bear hug, a slightly gentler but no less enthusiastic embrace offered instead; a concession to her fragile physiology. He grinned broadly as he clung to Dru. "Missing mine sister," he fumbled out; he knew it was incorrect, but he didn't care. She'd get the point.

by **Drusilla** on March 3rd, 2015, 3:55 am

Drusilla accepted the hug happily, still a bit unsure. Maybe he had forgotten about what had happened? But then why hadn't she? It had bothered her more and more. She had made him upset, she knew that for a fact. "I missed you too, brother." Drusilla meant that to. She backed up and looked at him, "Verda, I want to say I am sorry. Last I was here I wrote on your arm and it upset you... I shouldn't have done that... and I'm sorry. Please forgive me." She turned away. "I have somethings for you."

She walked farther in the stables, "I found these at the market. Oh and I have a new pet. I found a bat, not just any bat. One found in Kalinor. It was attacked by a bird, it's still in rough shape... But I think he'll make it." Drusilla smiled. As she walked by the creature Verda had chastised and added her own to it, "Azo!" She made a motion with her arm, "Caetszo!" With her tone and volume, she made her point clear and turned away. Drusilla wandered over to Solo and greeted him.

She sat down at the table and patted the seat next to her. "Sit. Sit. Come see what I found!" First she pulled a stone out of her bag, "It's Tree Agate! Look at the pattern. It's a tree!" Drusilla smiled, "There was a candle maker at the market with all strange scents, one smelled of wind eagle! It was crazy! I don't know how spot on this one is, but... It claims to smell of grasslands. I thought it might smell like Drykas did and make you feel more at home.... All of the candles seemed spot on. But, only you will know this one." She handed the candle to Zhol.

by **Zhol** on March 3rd, 2015, 4:38 am

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Confusion washed across the horse boy. What was she asking for forgiveness for? Drawing on him... the web? That had been a season and a half ago. His stomach squirmed in discomfort; he had barely seen his sister lately, and suddenly he wondered if this was why. Had she been avoiding him, all because of misplaced guilt over something so small?

"You didn't upset me, sister," he said quietly, sitting himself next to Dru as she instructed, and letting an arm rest gently around her shoulders. He breathed in the scent of the candle that she had bought him - it really did smell like the sea of grass - and felt the knot in his gut tighten a little, at the sweetness of the thought, and the unnecessary gesture that Dru had felt the need to make, while he was utterly oblivious that anything was wrong. "What you did was really sweet, and really touching. Tattoos just mean a very specific thing where I come from, and even though it was just ink, just a drawing, not permanent -"

He trailed off, mustered a small, bittersweet smile. "It meant a lot. I just didn't feel like I deserved it."

He hesitated for a moment, before leaning over to plant a kiss against the side of Dru's head. Slowly he lifted his arm free of Drusilla's shoulders and moving it between them, tugging up the sleeve of his work shirt. "I took your advice though," he explained, showing her the braided lengths of thread that he had tied around his wrist. The ribbon that Khara had tied around his wrist was there too, and while none of the strands were quite as vibrant as they had been initially - the baths had made sure of that - they were still firmly affixed, and Zhol had no intention of removing any of them.

"You suggested that if I couldn't carry my family in my hair, I should carry them on my wrist instead, so now I have a little braid of thread for all of them." He smiled a little as he indicated each one, and the reasoning behind each colour. "This purple one is you, because of your eyes; and it's next to this blue one, that matches Dinah's eyes. This lily white one; that's for my biggest sister, Lillah, the eldest out of all of us; and the orange is for little Yahalla, the youngest of us. They are not all of my sisters and siblings, but they are the ones I care for the most." He hesitated for a moment, his fingertips lingering on the last braid. "This red one is for Khara; it matches the scarf that I bought her in the Fall. She is not my sister, she is... I mean, we are -"

His voice stuttered to a halt, his face rapidly turning the same colour as his Khara braid. "I don't know what the word is, not in common, or Nari, or Pavi, or Symenos, but -" He trailed off again, an embarrassed set of eyes glancing in Drusilla's direction. "I love her, and she... feels the same. I have spent almost every night since the start of Winter able to hold her in my arms, able to wake up beside her every morning, and so I- I asked if she would like it if my room was our room, and she -"

He couldn't fight the grin. "She said yes."

by **Drusilla** on March 3rd, 2015, 6:12 am

"But, the look on your face. Utter horror, Verda. And I was upset and didn't even call you brother when I abruptly left..." Drusilla sighed, "You say you feel you don't deserve us. Do you ever think we feel that way about you? That we don't deserve you?"

She watched him smell the candle, "Does it smell of canvas tents, wild winds through the grassy sea, and of nights spent under the stars?" She asked absentmindedly looking up to the ceiling. "It smells strange to me... Something so foreign. A rock and a candle... Your sister makes strange offerings."

The kiss came as a surprise and Drusilla would of jumped had she seen it coming and could only stare back slightly baffled. Affection was something Drusilla was not accustom to. Her attention was focused onto Zhol's wrist, covered in braided bracelets. Her eyes rose to his as he got to Khara. "You two are horrible liars. I knew and as I said the day we met, I wish you all the love and happiness possible to you be it partners, lovers, man and wife. You are commited just to her? Forever? But not yet marked..." She lifted his shirt to check. "You are engaged? Vezanya. You wear the ribbon. Does she?" Drusilla smiled and pulled Verda into a hug. "My Verda....Vezanya.... Take good care of her."

She sat upright "That's right, I wanted your opinion on which candle I should give Khara... and I got her an Opalgloam, I showed her mine and she thought it was neat so...I got her one."

by **Zhol** on March 3rd, 2015, 7:41 am

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The accusation made his heart sink. It isn't you that I don't deserve, he wanted to say, but couldn't muster the words. Instead, he took a hold of Dru's hand, and frowned at it for a moment, pondering his words. "I think," he explained, "That my sister must be absolutely crazy if she thinks that. But, crazy sister or no, I am very lucky to have her."

He let go of her hand, and considered the scent of the candle again, taking hold of the stone with it's branch-like web of markings instead, turning it over slowly in his fingers. "It reminds me of summer," he said, letting his eyes close as he remembered. "This time of year, in Cyphrus, the air would be heavy, and damp. Everything would be fresh, and cool. But come early summer? That's when the Sea of Grass turns into this, warm and heady with the scents of flowers on the breeze, wafting across the grasslands to tempt the bees and butterflies from plant to plant. The wind just sighs around you at that type of year, just enough to take the edge off the heat of the sun. It's not a dry warm like inside Wind Reach, and it's not like a Kalean summer either. It's like slipping into a bath that is almost too hot. Everything just feels... alive."

The smile that Zhol offered to Dru when he glanced in her direction was small, but heartfelt. "I miss my old home. I feel like my memory loses a little piece of it every day. This will help me remember, though. Thank you, Dru... it means a lot."

He blushed as she began to speak about Khara, but his reaction quickly changed from bashful to confusion, then surprise, then mild panic. "Engaged?" What did Dru mean? What had he said that would give her that idea? Was this some blunder? Was this like the scarf, some tradition he didn't understand the meaning of? Why had he checked his wrists? What was it? The braid, the- the ribbon? No, no. Khara had put that there. It was just a hunting thing, part of her system, a sweet gesture, a small reminder of him. It didn't mean they were betrothed; that wasn't what Khara had meant to do... was it?

"No, no," he stuttered, his ears burning scarlet as every last drop of blood rushed to his embarrassed face. "I don't think that's what she- I mean, we're just-" He stumbled for the words. What were they? Lovers felt too crass; it sounded like it meant romance, but everyone knew it meant the other thing, and while there was willingness on both sides, they hadn't; they weren't ready yet. But then what? They were living together now. They loved each other, and both intended to do so forever; and if that forever included marriage, and they were already on the path to that, was that really any different from an engagement?

Zhol shifted awkwardly, a cascade of questions in his mind. He knew that wasn't Khara's intent. He assured her of that. But would she want to? When they had spoken in the past, Khara hadn't understood marriage, and wives, and families; she knew the words but not the meanings. Had that changed, now that they were together? Would she understand differently, now they were both being honest about how they felt? And if he asked, even out of curiosity, would it change things between them if Khara knew that it was something that Zhol might one day want? They were barely even together, barely together enough to accept that this was how life was now; there was something awfully frightening about the idea of risking it all by thinking too far ahead.

"We are just us. Not engaged, just... together." He fidgeted. "We haven't talked about that, and we are not ready to. We are just... happy to be us, and we don't want things to change from exactly how they are."

by **Drusilla** on March 4th, 2015, 7:18 am

Drusilla looked a Zhol when he took her hand. Verda was the only person who actually made physical contact with her. She was still unused to being touch, unless she was the one hugging them. She was getting used to hugs at least by her Verda. "Crazy I am, dear brother." She sighed, "I believe it may be a blood trait..."

She listened to Zhol's descriptions of Drykas although no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't see it, couldn't feel it. "Sadly I can't picture it... It's like, trying to imagine a new color. You must remember I was almost a teenager when I saw a tree or the sky for the first time. That was just over twelve years ago..." She smiled, "I figured if you have a hard time sleeping you could light it for a few ticks to help you sleep. The rock was just pretty. You've never really owned anything so I thought start small with a rock collection?" She gave a questioning smile.

Watching Zhol freak out she wasn't sure how to react. "Fine, don't be engaged.. Just saying what it meant to Symenestra. So you are just courting her..." Drusilla sighed, "Sometimes you humans confuse me... Now a candle for Khara. Does she like flowers? Citrus? Maybe berries?"

by **Zhol** on March 4th, 2015, 4:17 pm

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A slightly quizzical frown ghosted at the edges of his expression. A rock collection? A collection of... just rocks? Was that a thing that people did? Was that a common thing for Wind Reach? For the Symenestra? Was he supposed to have been looking out for interesting stones and pebbles on his travels? The notion puzzled and intrigued him. Gemstones were prized and sought after, he supposed, and if you were going to have material possessions, why not stones? They were free, some of them could look nice...

He decided to ask Khara, and for a fleeting moment his mind wandered into the happy, distracted territory of thinking about his beloved. Just courting didn't sound like enough of a description, it didn't sound important enough or significant enough; but if that's what Drusilla said it was, then he supposed it must be. All he knew is that betrothed wasn't what they were. The notion felt dirty to his mind, almost. In Endrykas, betrothed meant that some father had bribed some man to marry his daughter; or it meant that some Drykas had scooped up some poor woman, flung her over the back of his horse, and stolen her away to his pavilion. Zhol didn't want that. He didn't need some incentive to be with Khara, he didn't want her to do anything she didn't freely choose to do; and he didn't even have a pavilion to bring her into. He couldn't marry her, not the Endrykas way; and as far as he knew, it just wasn't something that the Inarta did.

So never, then.

That was a bittersweet thought. But then, did it matter? So what if he and Khara never became husband and wife? He loved her. She loved him. They were happy, they were together, and they were going to stay that way. Zhol didn't need a fancy ceremony or a divine stamp of approval to know that he was eternally hers.

His mind wandered a little further, a pang of longing in his gut as he realised that it was still most of a day before he would see Khara again. He pushed the thought aside, or tried to; but Drusilla's question brought Khara back to where she belonged at the forefront of his mind. Did Khara like flowers? Was it bad that he didn't know? Was he terrible for having never gathered any for her? Did she like any flowers, or just specific kinds? Was it a bad sign that he didn't really know which foods she liked? Was he being a bad... whatever he was to her, by not knowing enough to answer these questions?

Carefully he took each of the candles Drusilla asked about, and sniffed each one in turn, trying to imagine if any of them reminded him of Khara, or a place they'd been together, or some other hope of anything. "The berries are nice?" he said quietly, timidly, completely unsure of his answer and utterly convinced that he was the wrong person to be asking. "But the flowers would match really nicely with the candle you got me, I think. That way we could burn them together, and I know that Khara likes -"

He stumbled over his words, hesitating sheepishly. Such a conceited notion: Khara likes when we do things together. Of course she did, but that wasn't the right sort of answer. Drusilla was asking about a gift for her, not a gift for them.

"I don't know. Maybe the flowers would remind her too much of work and outside? I don't- I am not very good at this. I have never needed to think about gifts for someone I feel this way about before."

by **Drusilla** on March 5th, 2015, 2:32 am

"You know Verda, Symenestra don't pay anyone to marry their daughters. We choose, we can say no if we want. Marriage isn't just the way the Endrykas do it, every culture is different. Marrage is what you make it. Like you said, you're not an Endrykas so why follow those traditions?" She paused, "Look Verda I'm not telling you what to do. Just do what feels right. I just want to support you... But, I think I'm just confusing you more and I'm sorry." Drusilla's face was downcast as she thought about how much more complicated she made things. "I wonder... If I would be as big of a pain to my birth Verda... Did I ever tell you I have Verda?"

"Verda your thinking hard. Are you not good with gifts yourself? Don't worry the fact that you thought of us is more important than anything. Would you like to go pick flowers for her sometime? I'm pretty good at flower picking." A meek smile came to her face.

"But Khara likes her work. The floral one it is. Tomorrow I'll give it to her and this Opalgloam. Have you seen one? They're used to light Kalinor much bigger ones than these small ones for sale." Drusilla pulled the glowing stone from her bag. "Hold it in the dark! Watch it glows just like a star!"

by **Zhol** on March 11th, 2015, 5:59 pm

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Zhol probably should have been unnerved by how closely Drusilla's spontaneous comments echoed his inner thoughts, but she was right; more confused absolutely was what he what he was becoming. He had never agreed with the Drykas way, and hadn't even the faintest intention of honouring it: it had always alarmed him to think that one day his beloved twin would be unceremoniously sold off to some other pavilion, and that would be that. A knot of worry twisted in his gut as he realised such a thing could very well have happened to her in his absence; yet another loved one failed because he hadn't been there to protect her.

Still, while that sister was condemned to a fate that Zhol could neither fathom nor affect, Drusilla's story was much different. "You probably would have," he admitted, nudging his shoulder against Dru's, a small smile forming on his face. "But it'd be okay: I'm sure he'd be at least as fond of you as I am."

"And no," he continued, "I've always been terrible at gifts. Sometimes I see something or think of something, and it seems perfect? But then I'm not sure, and so I get something else as well, or instead, and I -" He squirmed a little, embarrassed. "- I buy too many things, or I spend too much, or I can't decide. I always worry that the gift will not be special enough... that they won't think of it the same way as I did when I found it, and I don't want anyone to ever underestimate how important they are to me."

He fidgeted at the suggestion of flowers. "I wouldn't even know what kind of flowers are the right ones to get," he admitted, "Let alone where to find them. A lot of things mean a particular thing in Wind Reach, and I would..." His cheeks turned pink again. "I would be worried about saying the wrong message with flowers by accident."

He frowned a little as Drusilla began to talk about the opalgloam, a flash of recognition sparking in his mind. Something he'd seen? Something Khara had reminded him of? Something from their visit to Drusilla's home on her birthday? He watched the small stone with fascination, already seeing the light emerging from it within the shadow of Drusilla's bag and in her hands. "You have one of these in your room, yes?" he asked, hoping he was remembering correctly.

Closed A present for Verda