[Gyvaka Swamp][Flashback]Sticks and Stones (Haeli)

[Velarian Zantedeschia]

Timestamp: 82 Day of Summer 509AV

He had been in the swamp before. In his youth he had been hunting among the ponds with other boys his age, ignorant to the dangers. They had preyed on frogs and squirrels and fish, rarely capturing either, but basking in the glory of their catches the few times they managed to succeed. The swamp had changed since. Gone was the narrow path Velarian and the others would have followed, overgrown to an extend the man had been unable to find it. He had taken another one. He had tried to find the slough he and the other children had so often searched for smaller animals, but had failed that endeavor much like the first. The swamp had changed, but so had he, his friends.

These days most of them were going for different quarry, larger, more intelligent; harder to catch. Prey which yield one more praise. More than that even. Prey which harbored the sweet promise of offspring, the survival of a culture no one but his own kin cared to preserve. It wasn't the sort of game Velarian was seeking however.

Crouching down the tall man eyed into yet another hollow tree stub, smelling the cloying scent of rot and fungi, searching the half dark for movement. There was none. Not of the small vermin the swamp was crawling with, not of the snake or salamander he had hoped for. Carefully he shifted his weight from one leg to the other, his long nails dancing a staccato on the wood before him. The soft chuck, chuck, chuck of his tapping echoed over the clearing while Velarian glanced into the moist womb of the tree trunk. "Now, now, anyone at home down here?," he murmured to himself in soft Symnos, his dark ruby eyes narrowed. His only answer was silence, darkness yawning into his face. Clicking his tongue he stood up.

"Guess not."

He had rather spend his evening with other things than hunting for what he might not be able to catch in the end. The swamp was not his place. On occasions he had crossed the wild to the north, had followed merchants to other cities, but never alone, never in the south. He was not afraid, but he felt distinctly uncomfortable. Out of his element.

Velarian found himself turning around, eyes trailing up the path he had followed, making sure he would find his way back. Eventually. Spending a night in the damp cold – or longer when he failed to find his way back – was not a prospect the Symenestra was too keen on. Not a survivalist to start with, he was painfully aware of the dangers which could lurk in the high grass, in the shadow of the trees. He had not looked forward to his lone adventure, but traders had been rare the past seasons and those who had come had not brought any of the things he needed.

The seam of his simple linen robe dragging through the mud, he continued down the path, stopping only to listen out into the swamp, to the myriads of noises which had never bothered him as child, yet did now. The lamenting cry of a bird let him freeze and for a second only he resembled a meager dead tree, the sort of tree which made people wonder why it had not fallen over yet, too thin, too wispy to survive and still defying gravity. With a sniff he looked around, eyes wandering over vegetation and puddles, the azure summer sky. A sudden movement on the ground caught his attention.

Leaving the path behind the Symenestra entered deeper into the swamp.

[Haeli]

It was when he came deeper into the swamp that he saw her. He passed from a world lit by the sun and into a shadowy realm of giant cypress trees that gathered to form a natural amphitheater perfect for an audience though no true crowd would ever witness what was going on in their midst. Sunlight dappled down, broken and interrupted, but enough to highlight the denizens grazing beneath the thick branches of the swamp giants. At first all he saw was the speckled herd of swamp deer. They were common enough creatures, hearty with modified hooves that splayed out and let them run across mud where no self respecting deer could normally go. Within the arms of the amphitheater, tall grass grew. It wasn't the natural sawgrass that was tough and almost impossible for anything to graze on for fear of slicing up their insides. Instead it was rich nutritious green grass, belly high on the deer, and they grazed it with enthusiasm. And among them, in a manner that should have seemed out of place, was a human girl. Barefoot with a shock of blond hair that curled around her torso in an unruly manner, she stood among the deer imitating their ways. She moved when they did, gently, moving forward, her own head bobbing though she didn't graze from the grass like they did. She seemed to study them, unobtrusively, as if the creatures fascinated her. Bare foot and bare armed, the girl wore only a thin shift belted at the hip. A small hatchet hung at her waist and a hunting knife was tucked into the small of her back in the belt there. She wore no jewelry, had no other gear, and seemed incredulously enough to be playing like a child. If he stood quietly, it would be quite some time before the deer noticed him, giving the symenestra ample opportunity to observe what was going on. At first, it might have looked like the girl was using some odd hunting technique to slip into the deers midst, making her way in close enough to take one for food. But she was well within touching distance of two animals and yet she made no move to harm them. Her attention was fascinating because her eyes roamed over each animal with the air of a scholar. So intense was her focus that she failed to notice the newcommer. Instead she seemed to be concentrating on something else. Suddenly the bare skin on her arms and legs, at least what he could see, took on the strange speckling pattern that the deer held in their coats. Even from the distance he was at, the Gyvaka visitor could see the sleek hair sprouting all over her body. To someone well versed in kelvics, it might appear as if the girl was shapeshifting into a deer. But that wasn't the case. The instant her skin grew the same molted furred camouflage as the rest of the deer, the transformation halted. It took a full minute before her skin matched that exactly of the deer. Oh, the patterning wasn't perfect and seemed to repeat which gave her a 'fake' look. A little more randomization of the spots would have made it far harder for a predator to spot her in the darkened light-speckled interior of the cyphrus forest. But as with any first try, she did the best she could. Making it more realistic and random could come later with practice. Then as he watched, something else happened. Antlers sprouted from her delicate head, nothing fancy, but seemingly closely modeled after a young buck wandering the fringes of the herd, most likely not yet driven away by the big racked male leading the herd. They were delicate, single forks of bone protruding from her skull. They looked imperfect, as if the shape or design wasn't exactly right. Whereas the young male had gleaming fresh-grown antlers that looked sharp and perfectly mirrored one another, the girl's horns looked unfinished. As he watched, she continued stepping along with the herd and the antlers sprouting from her brow slowly changed. One grew taller, one shorter, and she gently reached up as if to feel them, to see if they were better or worse. As he watched, the horns changed again, but she couldn't seemingly get the color right or the exact shape. His sharp eyes could pick out a ripple in her arm muscles, as if the very task of growing the antlers caused her to tremble somewhat. Slowly, she kept moving, one with the deer, and kept working on the antlers. But he could tell she was tired, by the expression on her still furred face. It reflected frustration and effort in equal measures. A buck, in charge of the little herd of six does, lifted his head and stared at the Symenestra. Most of the does followed through, lifting their heads to look as well. The girl in their midst froze then slowly almost effortlessly sank down, her knees bending in one seemingly unhurried move to dip beneath the level of the waist high grass. He caught a glimpse of her face as she did so and recognized immediately that she was young. Fifteen, perhaps a little older or younger, she was of an age to be harvested, but only just so. The deer, cautious but as of yet unconcerned, began to casually move away, slowly seeming to wander towards deeper cover without looking hurried. Tall grass rustled at a ninety degree angle to the herds movement. The man could easily tell it was the girl, crawling slowly away at an angle, counting on the symenestra to follow the deer and not her. She was something that shouldn't have existed in the Gyvaka. This was not a human place, it was a wild place. And yet there she was, slowly making her escape.

[Velarian Zantedeschia]

In the shadow of a large swamp Mahogany Velarian watched the deers leave, one by one they wandered out into the swamp, only the sound of rustling leaves following them. He barely paid them attention, eyes resting on the patch of shivering grass right ahead, head tilt to the side and watching with quiet curiosity. The snakes and salamander were all but forgotten, when the symenestra walked along the fringes of the grassy field, without stepping into the sea of waving green. A light wind tugged gently at his clothing, causing him to shiver despite the sun's warmth.

It had been a long time since he had last caught sight of a foreign girl in the swamp and back then the woman had been accompanied by a group of harvesters, luring the young blond towards the underground city with the promise of a warm meal and a place to sleep. They had jested behind her back in their own tongue, how easy it had been to catch her, who would come to bed her in the end. He had seen others in the swamp before, but never alone and rarely so close to Kalinor. In the first moment he wondered if she was an escaped surrogate, but soon realized it was unlikely. While many tried to escape the city below, few managed to even climb from their rooms and neither of those who managed would make it out of the cave itself, lacking the climbing ability of his own kind. He had not heard of a hunter loosing his prey around the city either, although he wasn't sure all of them would admit they had lost track of their quarrel and bore the shame. It also meant giving others the chance to find the lost woman before they could do so.

The swamp was a hard place to live for anyone, children especially. Dangerous animals roamed the shadowy paths and vine tangled wild, and while there were many fruits and plants to feast on it was hard to tell which were poisonous. Or even just eatable. Surviving in the swamp required experience, but the girl he had seen was barely more than a child, a bit younger and Velarian had been certain to be double as old as her. He was almost certain to not have found the would-be-surrogate of someone else. Instead he had the distinct feeling the girl knew exactly what she was doing. The way she had moved among the deers. Her quick reaction when she had spotted him, crouching almost like an animal hiding. If he had to guess he would have said she had been living in the swamp for some time, despite how impossible it seemed.

Her long survival was not the only oddity to the symenestra however. It wasn't one the man felt most intrigued about either. He knew of both kelvics and the arcane art of morphing, but he had little experience with either of them. When he had been on a journey some years back he had seen a kelvic change form and he was aware they couldn't stop shifting before they had assumed one shape completely. Which left the possibility of magic, but the girl would have been the first morpher he had come across. It was no area of magic the symenestra had much interest in, yet it was rare to find magic users so young and he would have lied denying he was not slightly fascinated.

At his side the grass was still moving, the warm light of the summer sun danced in golden speckles over the field, light amber on lush green. Had it not been for the sound of rustling grass, Velarian would have had trouble making out the spot the girl lay hidden, working on her escape. He had to admire her prudence doing so. Many had either run as fast as they could or had frozen in the spot, hoping no one came looking for them. Without hurry the man watched the grasses' movement, rounding the clearing for the spot where he anticipated her to leave the sea of green. Bending down the tall man crouched, heels risen, elongated underarms resting on his knees he avoided contact with the muddy soil as much as possible.

"Impressive. What you did," he offered to the concealed girl in fluent Lhavitian, his voice risen. The sudden sound caused a flock of swamp birds to rise in the distance casting their shadows over the opening for just a moment before flying away with some last complaining screams upon the nuisance. The symenestra ignored them. "Quite tiring too, I would imagine," he continued, the said more question than statement. Absently his fingers ran along the fabric of his robe, feeling the threads under his fingers and the softness of the simple linen. Looking down, the man noted the dark stains towards the seam with light distaste. The muddy swamp water had soaked the clothing up to his ankle, turning the brown to almost black, ruining it. Quietly he breathed out.

"You understand me, do you?"

In recent years Velarian had learned broken common, but he was not fluent enough to strike a longer conversation in it. If he could he avoided speaking it altogether. Watching the green he listened out into the heart of the tall grass.

[Haeli]

Haeli forgot all about the antler practice. The swamp witch knew she would have gotten it right eventually, but there would be time for that later if she could live through the now. Slowly, carefully, she tried not to panic. A good head kept people alive in the swamp. The girl had no weapons with her, so first things first, she'd take care of that. Long hardened claws sprang from her fingertips where her nails used to go. Her jaguar form taught her all she needed to know about claws and fighting. Unfortunately, she didn't have time to assume the whole of Fang's form because the transformation and the sheer amount of time it would take her would mean that she'd be vulnerable that whole period. Being vulnerable in the swamp someplace far from shelter and with a stranger present wasn't her idea of safe. So she settled for the claws and waited. Haeli should have heard movement as the hunter followed the deer. She expected the awkward squish of mud as boots tromped over the stuff. But there was no noise. It was eerily strange. Her own heels sank almost ankle deep in the nutritious soil feeding the tall grass. Barefoot, she moved about the swamp far easier than most, unworried about the snakes and denizens that could bite at her heels. Slowly, she edged backwards, moving away form the deer herd and away from the hunter at an angle that was both unexpected and concealing. Her motions weren't big ones. Haeli inched, tapping the essence of snake inside her, unhurried in her escape. If she fled as if there were no reason to flee, then soon enough the danger would disappear. Ozantha had taught her well. She was almost to the edge of the clearing when the voice sang out, calling softly to her position. She had no idea what it was saying, but its accent was from Kalinor. Haeli had heard the spiderlings before. And though Ozantha has told her nothing about them, possibly not knowing herself, Haeli still thought the people beneath the ground were strange. He called again. She weighed her options. In the swamp she could out run him. She knew she could. But in the mean time, what could it hurt to talk to him? Slowly Haeli rose from where she was crouched. She looked at him curiously, her face cautious but not afraid. She brushed a strand of loose blond hair out of her eyes and looked her fill of him. Stranger. Pale. Indeed probably one of the underground people. His limbs were longer than normal and his hair almost white. To a human he'd pass for one, but to Haeli who'd spent the whole of her life studying the details of life, he was nothing like one in reality. He looked otherworldly, like nothing she'd ever gotten a close look at before. He also looked dangerous. Very dangerous. "I don't understand you." She said in snake-tongue, all but hissing. Then she flashed her teeth at him, a universal warning sign of stay back, and stood up her full height. A soft growl emanated from her form as she paced back and forth in his line of sight. Haeli was trying to confuse him, trying to see if he was indeed alone. It was another trick she learned in the wild. Look bigger and stronger than you were. Make yourself too much of a bother to eat. Then, common. "Your words make no sense. What do you want here? You do not belong." She added, gripping her hands close to her loose skirt, hiding the claws for an element of surprise if he had nefarious thoughts in mind. She growled again and took a threatening step forward and growled again, bluffing.

[Velarian Zantedeschia]

Grass shuddered and the girl stood, slender five and a half feet tall with tangles of golden hair playing around her face, her skin tanned from years spend in the open. She was nothing like Velarian or even the females of his race. The young woman was dirty and ragged where his kin paid meticulous attention to both neatness and appearance, she was wild where his people might have been laid back, biding their time. She had been kissed by the sun, where he had spend most of his life in the belly of the earth. There was yet another, more immediate, difference too. She was familiar with the swamp and its animals while he was merely a guest.

Too swiftly she had vanished in tho the green earlier, but now the man had time to observe her, he did so with almost scientific fascination. The sort of interest some had for fancy insects they found turning over a stone. He was most intrigued about the deer aspects still blended into her human form.

Soft fur covered part of her skin and he might have touched it had he dared to. Antlers crowned her head, making her posture seem more imposing than it would have been without the additional inches they granted her. Without the horns he would have stood taller than her if he had chosen to get to his feet. He didn't. Muscles tensed he remained crouching on the ground, ready to move, but without doing it yet. The symenestra was aware he was no runner. He knew the moment the girl decided to dash his chances to catch her lay between an optimistic unlikely and a more definite impossible. He was also certain to be able to dodge an attack should she leash out on him, or at least he hoped so.

Wary he watched her pace back and forth, heard her hiss. It was an animal sound to him, the warning whisper of a snake advising to not come any closer. Velarian would have called the sound vicious had it not come from a human youth almost half his age. It would have been amusing even, had he not known of her powers. For all he knew she eventually sported the poisonous fangs to fit her hissing and while the symenestra could see the irony in being bitten by another venomous humanoid, he would rather not add it to his list of first hand experiences. Already he wondered if she was able to talk at all or if he had found the failed experiment of some Morpher rather than the sorceress herself. A deer turned human. Or the other way around? He had not heard of someone so powerful living in the area. Recently some merchants had spoken of a swamp witch, but the deer girl seemed all to young for a woman with her reputation and he had always imagined them to make the story up only to coax out some more miza for the goods they brought.

When the hissing suddenly changed to words, Velarian didn't notice at first. He understood barely more than when she first had opened her mouth. Only gradually the said started to make sense to him and then he was more guessing than understanding the said.

"I don't live... here," he said slowly, despising his lack of words. Instead of specifying a 'here' he nodded towards the dark green of the swamp around them, hoping she would understand what she meant. His voice was a soft thing, calm, soothing. It might have been melodic, had the man not struggled with the utterance of the common tongue. So he stretched parts of words not meant to be stretched, rolled and combined constants and entire words, condensing the sentence to one breathless sing sang. One could not say he was not trying, yet the effort he had to put into summoning up his little knowledge about the language was apparent on his face.

"City of Kalinor?," he suggested, gesturing towards the rough direction of the city, hoping he got the course right after wandered the swamp for half a day. While the cavern was no secret, he wasn't sure the girl had ever heard about it. "I was hunting. Animals sleeping in the sun." He made a waving gesture with his hand, moving it from left to right before his chest imitating a snakes movement in the grass. "They sleep in earth when cold. Are hard to find then and autumn comes."

A long moment he watched her before turning a hand, showing his empty palm to her. It was meant as reassuring gesture, yet his black, claw like nails opposed the intended effect. A little belated the symenestra realized as much, quickly closing his hands with an apologetic twitching of his lips into a half smile. Absently he shifted his weight from one leg to the other to keep his muscles from going stiff. If he had to dance out of the way, he wanted to be ready. Avoiding impact was the best way to go for one of his kind even though he wasn't sure the girl would be able to summon enough strength to break the bones of a adult symenestra.

Hand still closed he gestured at himself. "Name is Velarian. Who are you?" Again he nodded towards the vegetation. "You are living here? No good place for you. It are dangerous."

[Haeli]

As the man spoke more, Haeli grew to understand him better. He was hunting snakes? She nodded, stood more fully upright, and strode forward a bit more to hear him better. Predators tended not to talk to their prey, at least in her experience, and seeing him with open palms and no weapons was a whole lot more reassuring than naught. She took a moment and morphed the fur on her face back to normal skin. The stuff on her arms and that which was hidden beneath her shift reverted back as well. The antlers seemed to meld back into her loose blond hair and suddenly she looked completely human. She kept the claws on her hands for backup, but he didn't need to see them. "Snakes. You mean snakes. Sorry for the antlers, the fur... I was practicing being a deer in all its parts instead of the whole. Parts first are easier to learn than the whole of the animal." She said in common, tilting her head and looking thoughtful. "Do you eat them? Some of them are very good for food. Others are very good for good poisons." She added. When he gave her his name, for some reason, that seemed yet even more friendlier. One didn't name ones self to someone one was going to kill or eat did they? Haeli tilted her head and offered her name back in response. "Haeli. The swamp is my home. I've always lived here. It's more dangerous outside the Gyvaka than inside for me. I am one of its residence and it shelters me. Are you as well or are you from beneath the land, the stone city?" She asked, suspecting he wasn't from the swamp but rather from Kalinor. The swamp was a big area, one she had yet to completely explore. But she'd have heard about someone new moving in, she suspected, before too long. "You are not human are you? Are you... spiderkind?" She asked, curious. Spiders did not disgust or scare her. They were part of the swamp life she lead. Everywhere she looked they existed so she had no preconceived notions about them nor any fears. "If you are hunting snakes, tell me which kind, and perhaps I can show you good places for them." She added, offering to help. It was better to help than to show conflict in the Gyvaka. One made trades that way and gained allies. 'If anything, he should be worried about being in the swamp alone. And he did indeed look to be alone. Haeli knew most of the trails and byways easily enough, but for a stranger in a unique land, it was almost surely deadly. This time of year he could easily stumble across a gator nest being defended by a gator that was far meaner than the man himself was. He could find bogs with no bottoms, poisonous snakes, spiders, even swamp jaguars. He needed to be careful. "The Gyvaka is very dangerous to strangers. Why are you here?" She asked. "Aren't there easier places to hunt snakes?" She guessed, not really knowing if that was true or not.

[Velarian Zantedeschia]

"There is no reason to apologize." The mud under his heels made a soft sucking noise when the man stood, robe rustling. While he had looked like a spider waiting its prey whilst crouching, he now resembled a stalk of reed, unimpressive thin and yet flexible. His intense eyes made up for the lack of physical presence, his ever moving fingers distracted from both. Long and lithe they rarely stood still, illustrating his words with reserved, flowing gestures. "It was good watching. Interesting."

It still was, now the antlers shrank and became one with the girls head once more as if they had never truly existed. In a way they probably had not, but Velarian did not know enough about Morphing to tell such details. They had been there, now they were gone and the process had been incredible to watch. Inspiring in a way. He had never studied deer. The animals were too large to keep in the city and he was certain they were hard to hand-tame. And he would have needed more than one to study behavior patterns like their herd instinct. One day he would have to look into the matter. Right now though the prospect of getting help finding his original quarry sounded much more promising.

"Snakes? Snakes, yes." He rolled the word as if getting a taste for it, nodding. "I eat them, but not not looking for meal this time." Velarian was no picky eater and he would live with whatever his brother or other hunters brought home and snake sometimes found its way in his kitchen and on his plate. For a long moment he tried to think of how to explain to her what he was going to do with the snake. "I need one for watching. Learning? The way it moves and what it is doing and how. To teach things do the same." Carefully he took in her reaction, wondering if she understood. "I do not need it to have poison. Only a snake." It was not meant a pet, more a study object for his Animation, but he did not know the right term for either.

"I do come from Kalinor." A long moment he struggled with himself, unsure if he should invite her, making the hunt easier for the harvesters, but then decided against it. Kalinor was no city which could hold a girl able to grow wings. Someone able to fly would always win over a master climber. She would eventually even pose a thread to the city, no one would thank him for bringing along.

Her question if he was one of the spider people even drew a little smile on his face. It was not the worst term he had heard to describe his people. "I am symenestra." The last word he pronounced additional care, again watching her. Almost the idea of getting warned of the swamp by a girl so young make him grin, but something stopped him. The vague feeling she could be right, that she knew the swamp better than him. And had a better chance surviving within it. "There could be snakes somewhere other than here. I not hunt usually. I buy. I knew I would find here near water and came."

He could deny it had been an unwise decision to come alone, to come at all. Yet he refused to leave now he had already traveled so far. Falling silent his eyes came to rest on the girl indecisively. "Help would be... appreciated." It was strange to be offered help however and for the first second he questioned her motives and if he was unknowing prey rather than reluctant hunter. "What do you want for your help?" There has to be something, she wants. He was near sure of it. What he wasn't sure of was what it might be.

[Haeli]

The girl moved forward, curious, with motions that were more like an animal than any human the Symenestra had seen. Her limbs were fluid and no action was wasted. Haeli seemed to flow with the swamp rather than through it or against it. But it was her eyes that drew attention. The curiosity in them was almost tangible as it blazed up and caused her pupils to melt into liquid gold. It almost made her lovely, despite her youth and the swamp's filth she wore. "I know where snakes are. I know how to move like one. I can teach you, if you'd like, or catch one for you. A small one, yes, that will not hurt you." She said softly, almost within arms reach now. For a human she was lithe, though her limbs were muscled from a lifetime outside in the surroundings she was in. There was no shame in her, though her shift that she wore was all but threadbare and thin enough to leave very little to the imagination. It was as if clothing was only a secondary consideration. The girl moved in the damp soil, not even noticing it was damp, as she gently side between the tall grass and cautiously joined him. "Velarian." She said, almost as if testing his name on her tongue and linking it up to his face and putting a label on him as to who he was. She seemed satisfied after a moment, offered him a smile, and nodded. "You want to make a trade for the learning or for the snake. I know how to do this. But you have nothing I want except for one thing." The girl said. Standing finally before him, he could smell her scent which was of fresh mown grass and an earthly lavender that seemed to come from her hair. She didn't smell like slowly decaying water or the rank ripe rich scent of the swamp. Beneath the dirt she was clean, or had been at one time. And she was also a great deal less formidable before him. He was slightly taller, more fragile though, but with a wealth of years on him that the girl before him did not. Haeli didn't know it but she was very lucky he wasn't a Harvester. Had he been one she'd be easy pickings. He could tell she hadn't dealt with many people or else the curiosity in her eyes would be fear. She certainly had limited contact or none at all for how easily and trustingly she approached. "I would wish to hear about your home and your people. I do not travel and have seen no place other than here. Will you tell me of your kind and anything else you might know that I do not about places other than here?" She asked, curious. Truthfully she wanted to know about other human settlements but she wasn't sure how to broach it. "I'll teach you then, at the same time so the trade is fair, to be a snake or find you one. Whatever you prefer." She said, as if this was the easiest thing in the world.

[Velarian Zantedeschia]

"I not came around much. But I can tell you about my people," Velarian suggested with a nod. It was a rare request the young woman had made. Most knew about his kind, or thought to do so with the determination and contractedness founding so many prejudices. Widows. Wife stealers. Eaters of human flesh. The symenestra did not need to show his claws or fangs to scare those he encountered, his reputation served that purpose well enough. It did not help the majority of those claims were not pure inventions either. "I know a little about city in the north as well. Lhavit? Just not that much," he continued, watching her. He was not entirely oblivious to her womanly features, yet the way she behaved made it easy viewing her a child rather than a woman grown.

He could sense an innocence in her, he was not used to find in a youth bordering adulthood and it was one he found most curious. The harvest was an integral part of symenestra life no one could fully close his eyes to and there came the point in everyone's life when all romantic notions of servings one's race and family broke away and what remained was the cruel reality of survival. Innocence was not a trait Valerian often came across in his own people and facing it in the girl gave him an uncomfortable feel of uncertainness on how to react to it.

"It is a lot to tell, but I will try. Also, answer your questions if you have any." The longer he spoke, and more importantly the longer he listened, the surer he became conversing in the foreign tongue. He started to remember words almost forgotten since his last extended travel over seven years ago, even when he was still struggling with the order to put them in, the pronunciation. "I would be...," he seemed to think for a word to use, "… glad if you teach me. I can not think I would be good being a snake, but I would like knowing how to catch one." He was not entirely sure if Haeli had offered to teach him morphing, but while the idea was tempting he shied learning magic from a teacher he knew so little about, especially an art where mistakes could prove fatal. The young woman had talent, at the same time Velarian doubt his own endowment in the regard. Catching snakes would be saver, he imagined, knowing it would not be without risk itself.

Taking a step to the side, the symenestra suggested the young woman to take the lead through the swamp, ready to follow along her side. "Do snakes hear well? If not so I can talk while we try finding one," the man proposed, his voice more quiet than before, eyes scanning the ground around the nearest bushes and rocks, wondering how many animals they had scared away talking alone.

Absently Velarian stroke over his robe stained with mud and dirt. It was ruined now, but not long ago it had been a fine example of symenestrian craftsmanship, well cut to fit his slender frame and accommodating for the armor he wore beneath it. A robe meant for working, undecorated and made from linen rather than silk or satin, but a good piece of work still. Eventually he could have offered her something new to wear as a payment, but when he was honest he liked the idea of putting his folk into a more favorable light.

He inclined his head to the young woman, trying to decide where to start. "Do you know anything of my people?"

[Haeli]

Haeli nodded and slipped in front of him, taking the lead. She settled in trustingly to the agreement with him. Trading, it seemed, was something she was familiar with. "I know nothing of your people." She responded, then gave him a second look and seemed to change her mind. "No, that is not true. I do know what you are called and that you are kin to spiders, somehow." She added, then set off again through the tall grass. Haeli moved in a way that placed her feet at odd angles to the moist soil. Bare toes gripped the wet soil confidently as she slide between the tall grass, leading the way from safe patches through shallow water and onto more safe patches of high and dry soil. Velarian knew there were treacherous spots in the grasses, deep murky pools that would suck an unsuspecting traveler into them. But Haeli avoided such things neatly, moving as if she'd been here her whole life and had every blade of grass named. "Ruby snake. I'll find you a ruby. You have the same eyes. Red. Like the stone." She added, then offered him a smile. "Unusual. I like them. People come here to trade sometimes, humans, and they have brown or green, sometimes blue. Never red." It was true. His eyes relaxed her and made her think of a snakes gaze. Snakes were familiar creatures even if Symenestra were not. "We need to find a tree though. Cypress or wet spicebark which both have smooth bark that doesn't bother the snakes much. Ruby snakes are ticklish and do not like rough things to crawl on." She added, changing directions almost the moment she made up her mind. It was nice, having someone besides Ozantha to speak too. He was unusual, something different, and endlessly fascinating to the girl. In fact, she'd said more to him in the last few minutes than she'd spoke in the last month. Words felt odd in her mouth, foreign. She liked the feeling though. And it made her smile, soften slightly, and glance back at him frequently to make sure he was keeping up. Luckily, a stand of cypress wasn't too far from where they were. They traveled only a few minutes, out of the relatively high ground of the grass where she'd been watching the deer and out onto the marginal areas where it was wetter than before. Velarian's heels sunk deeper into the mud, though the ground still remained firm beneath the waterline. "Clothing is not so good for here." Haeli said, her eyes noting the stains on the bottom of his robes. "Especially fine clothing like you have. I am sorry for it's discoloration. I wear only this and only sometimes because of biting insects or the sun. Mostly its best not too at all." She said, bringing their progress to a halt after a few minutes of brisk hiking at the foot of an enormous Cyprus tree. "There should be one here, if not in the next tree. Do you want to climb with me?" She asked, then without fanfare reached down, grasped the hem of her shift, and pulled the threadbare garment up and over her head. She carefully hung it on a low bush next to the Cypress and began circling the tree looking for an easy way up. Cypress had smooth silky bark but they weren't without the cracks and crevasses that allowed for handholds when someone knew what they were doing. It was too one of these deep clefts that Haeli went to and began wedging her hands and feet into it and beginning to climb. He got a really good look at her there. Corded with muscle, the girl was about as fit as one would expect someone living in a swamp. There was no spare flesh on her, yet she wasn't starved thin at all. It looked like she ate well and enjoyed extremely good health. There were scars on her skin, true, but nothing huge or seemingly having been life threatening. Above her soft feminine mound and beneath her navel was etched a stylized tree that was the symbol of Caiyha's Gnosis. It looked to be a singular mark. Haeli climbed the tree with the vigor of a Symenestra, unafraid and enthusiastic as her bright warm eyes scanned the branches above her. "Do you like trees?" She asked, not bothering to stay quiet. The girl wasn't sure he'd stay on the ground or climb with her, but she knew for certain the snake she was looking for wouldn't be frightened by the noise. "We don't need to be quiet. Nothing noisy eats the ruby snake, so it will not be afraid." She said confidently as she climbed higher.