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[Konrad Venger]

Not me. The traps.

It didn't take Konrad long to realize what the two's real objective was. As he squinted at them he saw first one, then the other dismount and inspect them. The man seemed to be shooing the other away, and Konrad felt a smidgen of gratitude for that. Wouldn't matter much in terms of sight: potential prey wouldn't be coming out until nightfall, anyway.

But the stink carries. No furtive furry bastard's going to go near a trap that smells like man.

Now the woman studied him... and Konrad slipped the knife back into his boot. He tugged on the reins and pointed Yeh Bugger square at the pair. A light kick, a clock of his tongue against his teeth, and they were moving again. Clip, clop, just like the noises he'd made in the streets with the other urchins, thirty Summers and a thousand years ago.

As he approached, his features became clearer. His gaunt, half-starved figure, clothes hanging loosely off him. His face was like a shaved jackal, all cheekbones and a long jaw, speckled with stubble. Two green eyes like rotting moss were set into sockets that weren't hollow but seemed perpetually surrounded by the clouds of a man on the verge of violence. But his scars... they were the thing you remembered.

The Watchman, Azmere, he's been marked by fire. It was a different look: the way flames boiled and roasted flesh was a total ruin. It spread across whatever it touched, leaving nothing to spare. The scar ripping up Konrad's face from chin to ear was an unmistakably human mark. The single, savage slash of a sword, wielded clumsily but brutally. It spoke of rage and sadism, and it had grown as the boy had, for that was what he was when his father had done this to him.

Yeh Bugger stopped when Konrad reined him in. He looked at them. They looked back. His eyes flickered around without his head moving, checking his trap, looking up again... and jutting his chin out a touch in query.

"Who you?"

[Samuel Longwell]

Samuel nodded as Fiametta confirmed his guess, he had been correct in identifying the dog as more than just a pet. The Drykas were a practical people, everything and everyone had a job to do. A canine companion would be of great use to him, although he'd need to ask someone how best to use a hunting dog. His only real experience of hunting had been in the woods outside Syliras, where he had always just used a shortbow. He was just about to turn to ask Fiametta when she rode up behind him and pointed out the scarred man. The gaunt figure had been watching the pair, and now was riding towards them. Fiametta glanced back at Samuel with a glint in her eye, and guided her strider towards the newcomer. The Syliran shifted his body weight, legs coaxing Dan to turn round to follow the Drykas. Another calf squeeze sent horse and rider trotting after her.

As the groups approached each other, the other man's features became more clear. The scar that marred his gaunt face was the evidence of a blade's work. Samuel had seen plenty of similar marks in his time as a knight, and even inflicted some. His own visible scars were not so noticeable, little more than scrapes in comparison, but under his armour the Syliran had marks to rival those of the man who rode towards them. He did not change his expression, but simply loosened his sword in his scabbard on Dan's saddle. The scarred face spoke of a man who was no stranger to violence, Samuel didn't want to be caught off-guard like he had been with Fiametta.

The scarred man spoke, though it was less a greeting and more of an interrogative. The two words seemed to carry a weight of accusation in Samuel's mind, as though the man suspected the pair of messing with his traps. Samuel signed a greeting carefully, then answered.

“My name is Samuel, I teach Drykas to fight.” he said, “We did not mean to disturb your food-catching, we were... ah... interested?” Samuel paused, signing curious, then switched briefly to Common. “I mean curious, we were curious about what you were doing in the grass.” He gestured with his head over to where the trap was positioned. “No harm was intended.” he said, once again using the Drykas tongue. He glanced to Fiametta and asked “What is the word for this?” Once more his hands shaped curious, as he tried to recall how to communicate the concept in spoken Pavi.

Many thanks to Prophet for the box code.

[Fiametta]

"Curious," she said in her native Pavi tongue, while simultaneously forming the sign. In the short time they had known each other, Fiametta grew to actually enjoy Samuel's company. He seemed to be a genuine person, and it was obvious why he was permitted and welcome to travel with Endrykas. She loved languages and knew how difficult it was to pick one up when it wasn't your native tongue, so helping Samuel with his Pavi was more than pleasurable for her.

She looked toward the scarred man skeptically. He didn't seem friendly, but she had seen Samuel loosen his sword for quick access. She felt that with Samuel's expertise in fighting and her quick reflexes there was no need to instantly be defensive against the man. "I am Fiametta," she said, signing greeting to the stranger.

There was just something unpleasant about the man. It had nothing to do with his harsh and obviously human-caused damage, but rather a darkness inside of him. She was unsure of what it was, but it definitely didn't give her any desire to warm up to the man. Falyn snarled a little bit, his lip curling upward to reveal sharp canines, but instantly quieted when Fiametta snapped her fingers.

She was uncomfortable with his question: not the question itself, but the way he asked it. When meeting Samuel, she was easily able to relax because of his naturally warm nature. This man was different.

"You speak better Common?" She asked, switching to Common. It wasn't the most comfortable for her, but she had to speak Common in order to guarantee she could communicate with Non-Drykas. "You name is what?" She asked.

[Konrad Venger]

Hearing his native tongue was enough to soften Konrad's features, even if the effect was difficult to notice. He occasionally wondered if "native" was the right word, considering he had a Myrian father, but that was the language he'd been raised with, so the term fit.

Plus, like most Sunberthians, he blithely assumed Common was the language of the world. Everyone else either learned it, or found someone that did to translate.

"Hansel," he said, lie coming as easily from his lips in Common as it did Pavi. "Aye, dere my traps. Jus' checkin' 'em 'fore the night comes, y'ken? An' dun bother wit' dat signin' shyke, I only got d'words in Pavi."

It never occurred to him to dial down the lilting, choppy street dialect he;d been raised with. For seasons now he'd been speaking slow and measured in a tongue not his own; now he could cut loose in Common with people that could understand him. Or mostly, at any rate.

He eased back on the saddle and fanned his face with his hat. Thick but limp hair framed his face, flowed down onto his shoulders. He kept meaning to bundle it up into a braid or something, but never quite got round to it. He nodded back the way the two had come.

"What're youse doin' out? Jus' ridin', or get yer own traps?"

Did he really care? He didn't truly know. Questions weren't welcomed by him, so he didn't often ask them himself. But he caught no whiff of disdain or deception from these two. The bearded bloke had the way of a fighter about him, true, with weapons to match, and no mere sellsword by the look of it. Konrad looked him up and down, calculating and formulating instinctively, without really thinking about it.

The girl... well... he knew Drykas women weren't to be underestimated, but if she hid poison behind her words, she was an actress fit for the Syliran theaters.

"Teach t'fight, do yeh?" Konrad smiled. Ostensibly. "Might like t'see dat, one day."

Aye, he added privately. Always nice to know how a man you might have to kill moves.

[Samuel Longwell]

Samuel smiled appreciatively at the Drykas, his hands showing his gratitude to the young woman, before returning his full attention to the man who faced them. Hansel was his name, his words thick with an accent that seemed familiar to the Syliran. His brows drew together slightly as he wondered why it rang a bell. His frown relaxed when he realised why. Hansel had the same accent as Al did, the Vantha that Samuel had met during the winter. He hoped she had found somewhere safe.

The words that the man spoke were rough, just like the speaker. Samuel had spent a great deal of time around rough men and women, fighting both beside them and against them. He did not sense any imminent threat from Hansel, but he remained vigilant just in case. Hansel asked the pair a question, seemingly interested in the reason they were outside the tent city.

“Aye, mainly just riding,” Samuel replied “Needed to get firewood too, ready for my dinner tonight. Was just saying to Fiametta that I'm no good with traps.” When Hansel mentioned that he'd like to see Samuel fight, the Syliran looked carefully at the scarred man. Perhaps he was hoping for some sparring? It seemed to Samuel that the other man wouldn't need a lesson from him, unless it was about how to fight on a horse. A small smile touched his lips, Hansel would need to work on his seat before he tried to seriously wield a weapon on horseback.

“Well if you're ever around the Diamond clan you can come and see. There may be a Drykas who can teach you too if you're interested.” He paused, then turned to the young woman and signed an apology. “I did not ask, what do you do Fiametta?”

Many thanks to Prophet for the box code.

[Fiametta]

The mention of the Diamond clan, the clan in which she was born and raised, brought a sentimental smile to Fiametta's face. She hadn't even spared the clan a thought since she left. Her brother and father were the only ones who held any true significance to her from there, and when they were gone, there was no point in her staying. Still, it was where she came from, how she became who she did.

The man's, Hansel's, choppy and rough Common was difficult for her to understand. Fiametta was able to make sense of it, but she struggled slightly. His mention of seeing Samuel fight seemed to have a double meaning. Samuel would probably take it as relatively harmless, but Fiametta felt something off about Hansel's smile. Just something masked about it.

While Samuel was easily trustworthy, Hansel was something else entirely. Regardless, she wasn't in a place to interrogate the man, nor did she have any true motive to be suspicious of him.

"I am..." she paused in thought, trying to remember her words in Common. "How you say... wilderness guide," she finished, switching to her native Pavi tongue in the middle, and signing guide to them. Fiametta gestured to the vast wilderness all around them, positive that they would at least kind of understand what she was saying.

She pointed to herself with a gentle smile. "Diamond clan is home. Ask if need introducing."

[Konrad Venger]

Diamond Clan. He knew them well. Men like Konrad always gravitated towards places or factions where violence was refined into both profession and art form. He'd since learned that the Drykas weren't the sruffy, smelly, barbaric nomads he'd always assumed them to be. They were peerless horsemen and superlative hunters; they survived and thrived on an endless desert of grass and dirt, bearing dozens of species that were bent on killing them; they could knock birds out of the sky with their arrows at full gallop, and would spend days tracking a single deer, if that's what survival required.

And yet, among them, even the Diamond Clan were revered as the warriors and protectors of their people, their city. Konrad had seen a few of them in action, namely that taciturn sod Azmere, who looked even worse than him.

The scarred walahk pursed his lips thoughtfully, and nodded. Diamond Clan. Might be worth a visit, some day. He was growing tired of sparring with those who provided no real challenge, save for a few hardened Drykas closer to his own age. Them or wild animals, desperate and starving, who bore claws and teeth but no... skill. No intelligence.

"Y'll get better, trust me," Konrad said with a chuckle, as if the last two words were the most amusing part of that sentence. "Aye, two a' three seasons out here, havin' t'feed yerself, dat teaches y'to know how t'trap an' hunt. Give it a while longer, y'll see what I mean."

At the mention of them, Konrad's eyes flickered down to the second snare he'd laid. Undisturbed, unbroken... no longer needing his attention. He'd learned quickly that fretting and watching was counter-productive with trapping: you had to trust your skill to pick a location, set the trap, bait it properly, and the rest was up to Ciayha.

Petch me, when did I become sodding religious?

"Samuel... an' Fear-Metta," he said, looking to each person in tern as he spoke. The smile was still lingering like a ghost across his lips, but the spark of it was gone from his eyes. Humor didn't survive long on that face. The ground was too barren. "I'll see youse agen, I'd wager..."

He tipped his hat at the pair, looking Fiametta in the eye... but taking special care to linger over bearded, stolid Samuel. Aye. That would be a challenge.

"... n'fact, I'd count on't."

He clicked his tongue and kicked his heels and, of course, Yeh Bugger just shimmied and whinnied like he was mortally offended. So Konrad had to do it again, which ruined his big exit. Gods, but could the horse just understand theatricality for a moment? Eventually he managed to wheel around the shying animal and point him back towards the Pridesun pavilion. Another kick in its flanks and he was off, raising a quick hand over his shoulder as a farewell.

Diamond Clan. Samuel. Fiametta. I'll remember.

Don't Make Me Repeat Myself.

[Samuel Longwell]

Samuel nodded, he knew all too well that it would be wise for him to improve his ability to procure food while in the Sea of Grass. Although he had seen more death and bloodshed than many, he realised that in Syliras he had in some ways led a very sheltered life. He never had to worry about where his next meal would come from, or about the price of medicine, or even about having a safe place to lay his head. As a knight everything had been provided for him, and he knew that the order would be there to protect him. Out here however, in the wilderness, he was on his own. He could only truly depend on himself.

Hansel made his goodbyes, his last look at Samuel lasting a little too long to be considered natural. A chill ran up the Syliran's spine, there was something about the other man that unnerved him. The scarred man seemed to radiate threat, and when he turned his eyes upon Samuel there seemed to be a challenge in his gaze. Samuel exhaled softly when Hansel rode away, not having realised he'd been holding his breath. He found his voice as the other man rode away.

“Good hunting Hansel,” He called after the man, then turned to the Drykas. “I will be heading back to my tent now, it was good to meet you Fiametta. I'm sure we'll meet again. You know where to find me if you wish to have a lesson.” He signed goodbye, realising he'd still been speaking Common, then pulled on the reins to point Dan towards the tent city. A gentle squeeze set the pair trotting back home. Samuel bounced along with his mount, attempting to match the motion as closely as he could.

Many thanks to Prophet for the box code.

[Fiametta]

Fiametta, as skeptical as she was of outsiders, took a liking to Hansel. She had absolutely no reason to; he was abrasive, cold, not exactly polite, far from confident on horseback, and as far as she could tell, barely spoke Common, even less Pavi.

Samuel was noble, humble, trustworthy. He was a bit inexperienced when it came to life on the Sea of Grass, but he was willing and eager to learn. There was no poison behind his words, while Hansel just seemed to be constantly hiding something. It wasn't really a surprise; a man wearing the wounds that Hansel had clearly didn't live a pleasant life.

She just found herself wanting to know whose face lay behind those scars.

Even the look he gave Samuel was unnerving. It didn't take a genius to see Samuel was uncomfortable with Hansel's farewell. When he separated from them, Fiametta noticed an obvious relaxation come over the knight. It was an interesting shift.

Fiametta signed goodbye to Samuel's back, then turned Latigo for another look at the open land. Falyn stood eagerly, thinking they were going for another run. She smiled at the dog and patted her strider. "Home, boys," she said, nudging her heels on Latigo's sides. They trotted back toward Endrykas to wait out the night. No matter how brave she thought she was, Fiametta knew that staying alone on the Sea of Grass overnight was a death wish.