[Flashback]Oh, the Lessons we Learn (Chemar)

[Sairque]

36th Summer, 494 AV

Cleanliness is next to tastiness.

Not every child that lives in an active volcano can manage to keep themselves clean. Invariably, there is that one child, that despite all the facilities available in a giant mountain, cannot manage to be clean when she's supposed to. No one else had ever minded the dirt and mud splattered liberally over Sai's arms, face and clothing, when she showed up to do her bendi tasks. The chefs overseeing her instruction this afternoon, however, had:


"What do you want me to do?" The standard question Sai asked at the beginning of every new skillset she was to learn. The kitchen surrounding her, pans and knives strewn over the great stone counters, heat radiating off the massive volcano-harnessing stoves, loomed alienly above her. All ages found representation here, and all castes--save Endal. Her peers squeezed through legs on their appointed chores, elder Yasi bustled finding tools and foodstuffs, Chiet chopped away, and the masters, the Avora, boomed loudly in their commands, everywhere at once, tasting, correcting, mixing. One such, denoted with the elaborate braid all the chefs wore, heard Sai's resigned question and turned. Sai didn't even know there was a broom nearby until she found herself being swept out of the kitchens with firm, stinging strokes.

"Mongrel! You do not come into my kitchen with clods of dirt stuck to your arm hairs!" Her face was as red as her hair, and the ruddiness camouflaged the smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. "Disgusting! Do recipes call for mud?! No!" she boomed, each syllable enunciated with a thwack of the broom. "You'll ruin my flavoring with your additions! Go! Go clean yourself!" As Sai's eyes slid past her to the sinks in the kitchens, she gave the Yasi child a sharp shove with the bristles. "No! You use the sinks out in the eating area!"


So Sai found herself, height boosted by a chair, leaning over the smooth stone basin and splashing herself liberally with the cool water. First was her face, the droplets streamed down, taking the tears of fury with them, masking them, and then she scrubbed at the sensitive flesh until it was all red and puffy. There was nothing to be done about the pinched scowl on her narrow little face, no amount of scouring could scrub it away.

Face taken care of, embarrassment as well, the child stripped off her tunic and set about removing the wide swaths of caked mud, most of it chipping away like a rusting suit of armor to melt in the sink beneath her. She was alone at the row of basins. Most Dek found it useless to wash for the meals, and most others knew how to keep their dirt from affecting the taste and texture of their meal. As chef-lady would say.

[Chemar Tisserand]

The sounds in the common dining hall were always entertaining to Chemar. She enjoyed the sounds of the clinking dishes, the hushed conversations, the brash conversations and in addition, she got to eat. When she'd arrived at the dining hall it was on her own, her father had dreamweaving appointments all day, while her mother was occupied with running the Lady and Rae, 'Was not hungry'. How could she not be hungry? Chemar had thought to herself as she made her way. But now she was here, sitting by herself and watching people like a fly on the wall. Since her run in with the monkey soldier, things had changed some for Chemar, she'd begun to keep to herself, wary of the consequences of speaking with those with which she had no history. She reached to her hair; what had once been a long mane of cascading red was now a short crop of uneven strands that bluntly ended just along the bottom of her ears. After the 'helpful' shearing she'd received at the hand of the monkey, her father had tried to alleviate some of the damage and leave it long, but there was no way, so against the twisted face response from his oldest daughter he'd lopped off the rest in an attempt to start fresh. So here she looking more like a willowy little boy, than the girl she was. Every time she thought if it, her little hands balled into fists and her mouth twisted into a pouting scowl. The transformation had begun when she spotted her at the washing area. At first, she hunkered down, flattening her upper body against the table to observe. Chemar ignored the stares from nearby diners, focused only on stalking the monkey soldier. As she watched, she found herself moving closer, stealthily creeping from one table to the next, regardless of any occupants. The diners nearby change their focus from the little waif trying to buff her skin off at the washing area to the guerilla sneaker that briefly paused at their table. Oblivious, Chemar kept her focus honed in on the monkey. Her base became the table closest to the washing area, and she sat there, poised to pounce if the waif made any wrong movements. She sat there like a shadow, trying to meld herself into the top of the table, and hoping that the girl would not recognize her even if she caught sight. Vivid green eyes were locked on the face of her adversary; she began pulling close those things that sat on the table around her, building a fortress out of the utensils available to her. When she caught sight of the waif's face now and again, she noticed the red rimmed eyes, and at first Chemar thought it was simply the pressure the monkey had put behind her scrubbing, it was as though she were trying to remove the top layer of her skin in some kind of revolt, but the more she watched, the more those tears seemed from some independent source. Without a thought to her subterfuge Chemar hopped up. "Why are you crying?" The very moment she realized she'd blown her cover, she picked up the closest weapon, a very threatening vase and held it out toward the monkey, backing it up with a scrunched face and all her seven-year-old bravado.

[Sairque]

No one, not the hormone ridden youths vying for attention from one another in the most ridiculous of ways nor the pancake-emulating stalker suctioned to the table and pulling various items around herself, were within the scrubbing girl's periphery. As far as she cared, everyone in the dining hall could be staring at her back, watching her peel the dark second skin away in disgust, gagging and gouging their eyes out at the sin she had committed. None of it would change the fact that she had stood beneath those flesh-rending broom bristles and said not a word in her own defense. She had skulked out like a coward, obeying the Chef not because of rank but because she'd not had the presence of mind to formulate one word past her lips. Was it fear that had clouded her mind? Fear of the broom being turned around and put to use with the business end.

As though the ape's mere presence, her scrutiny, could conjure that fateful meeting to mind, Sai's thoughts tracked along the epiphany, as such that a seven year old could experience, she'd had that day. To be loved was to be soft. To be soft was to be useless. To be useless was unforgivable. To be useless was to be exiled from Skyinarta. The latter a lesson that all Inarta learned along with their first steps. Today at the sinks, little hands sloughing the lingering water droplets from her pink, mostly clean, skin, another line was added to the lesson. To be afraid was to be soft.

At the tender age of seven, the map, centered around 'useless', was created. At the tender age of seven, Sai first understood, within the limited scope of her experience, the basis of life in Skyinarta. One trail leading from 'useless' labeled 'soft' two trails leading from 'soft' labeled 'fear' and 'love'. Such was the emotional and cognitive capacity of the little soldier monkey.

Why are you crying?

The voice emerged from the din of the dining hall as only a voice with a clear purpose and target could. Plucking at the fabric of her tunic, getting it ready to tug over her head, Sai turned toward the tables and searched for the stranger asking such a question. Ego centric, she had been crying, therefore the question was for her. Of course, this didn't mean that she was admitting to anything as wimpy as--oh. Curiosity widened eyes finally recognized the person holding the vase with her chin stuck out pugnaciously. She wore her stubby tuft of hair with pride, while someone had clearly tried to hide her shame. Not surprising considering the traits that the girl had already displayed. The fact that the ape was clearly ready to scrap again, something admirable, didn't register.

"I'm not crying," she claimed, trying to sound nonchalant but ending up defensive. Though her narrowed eyes were still red, the puffiness had receded. "Why are you hiding behind a bunch of dirty dishes?" Sai demanded. "If you throw that vase at me you're going to get beat with a broom." The dirty tunic blocked sight of her condescending expression before it settled into place over her bony shoulders.

[Chemar Tisserand]

Chemar's gaze flicked from the soldier monkey to the vase, and back again. She did not lower it one inch, nor did she hurl it at the insolent girl; but she did respond to her question in spite of the threat that accompanied the asking. "I never planned on throwing it." Her young voice was saturated with disbelief, how could this savage even think she would throw it...yes... she held it as though she might, but that was beside the point. "It was my protection, just in case you jumped on me again. She straightened to her full height, narrowing her eyes at the monkey and giving a subtle jab with the vase. Again she looked at the puffed eyes, circled in red. "You were too crying." Her brows pulled together in a twist of confusion. "Why would you lie about it?" In most things, Chemar found it impossible and much too much work to lie, not to mention that her father had the uncanny talent to glean the truth from her every time she'd tried. "Lying is so much harder than the truth." Her adversarial mood had passed, so without ceremony, she set the vase on the table and walked over to the monkey. "I can see it here." She pointed at her eyes, her youthful fearlessness disregarding that her opponant may very well take this as a sign of aggression. She stood toe to toe with the soldier, awaiting her explanation. In the brief moment of tenuous silence she considered the monkey, even though she had proven to be violent and stupid, she didn't hate the girl, the selfless act of her lending Chemar a hand with recovering her beads prevented her heart from despising the soldier outright. She is awfully dumb though. She thought in passing as her long thin hands dipped into her pockets and she touched on the severed lock of the monkey's hair strung with four precious beads. She grimaced just a little, still trying to solve the mystery of why she carried them around; she didn't want them in her hair after they'd been in the monkey's, they were surely contaminated with her germs, and thanks to her Chemar no longer had enough hair to carry them regardless. There was a tiny voice that she crushed at every opportunity that told her she wanted the girl to have them, and was saving them for a time when she would actually take them. "Pfft!" She hadn't meant to say that out loud.. and tried to shrug it off casually without success. Somehow her personal dialogue bled into their meeting, and feeling like she needed to explain, even in the absence of making sense Chemar spoke after her outburst. "They are MY beads! If I want to keep them in my pocket , I will keep them in my pocket." As she listened to her own words, the look on her face was as confused as she expected the one on the monkey's to be. She had to turn this around somehow...even she was starting to think that the monkey had the right idea in trying to knock some sense into her head. "Nobody trusts a liar." Her arms folded as a punctuation to her statement of truth and she looked away, trying to figure out what had just happened.

[Sairque]

Though plenty of retorts leapt to mind, all with the express intention of ripping apart the girl’s unsound logic in regards to the vase, Sai kept her lips twisted shut. It was actually good that she wasn’t going to throw it because with those long arms, all hinged funny and gangly, the ape would have been more likely to hit someone behind her than what she was aiming at in front of her. And then both she and the poor sop that broke the vase on his head would have been beat with the broom. Absently, she rubbed at the faint speckling of irritated skin on her upper chest.

In this moment of negligence, the ape snuck up on her. Warily, Sai ducked her face away, hands coming up just in case the girl did more than just point at her. It didn’t help that she was putting her long spidery fingers in the same vicinity that she had flicked her that fateful meeting. Just when Sai was about at her patience’s end, ready to shove her away, she dropped her hand and blinked at her with those big cow eyes.

“Now you’re lying,” she pointed out testily, not appreciating that her lecturer wasn’t prescribing to her own holier-than-thou ideas. “People can’t see lies in eyes.” You’re dumb, she barely kept from tacking on to the end. Her offended disgruntlement, the expression on her face revealing every little thought she had about the ape, grew as she was ‘ppfft’ed. What a stupid little dumb head. Who was she to make fun of Sai? She wasn’t the one making no sense, making things up. She wasn’t the one hiding behind dirty dishes, wielding vases, accusing of lying, or or or. Sai’s little face, already narrow, pinched in fury. Fists clenched shut at her sides, trembling, before suddenly she raised one. It whipped up toward the ape’s face. The blow fell swiftly. One bony finger jabbed sharply into the girl’s sternum, her whole weight behind it as she lunged forward, chin stuck out pugnaciously. Nobody trusts a liar?!

“Well nobody likes you! Always making people cry and sticking your fingers in their eyes and rubbing their faces in your stupid glass beads! At least I have friends!” Or, well, kids that roved around with her. Here was the ape, all alone again.

[Chemar Tisserand]

The unexpected jab knocked into her sternum her hand flew up, flattening against the sting and she mouthed a silent "OW!" She rubbed the spot on her chest, her mouth still poised in a grimace. The virtual slap in the face came when the monkey commented on her solitude. Having always thought it was her own choice to remain distant from everyone, she was insulted and angered at the stupid girl's assumption. "You don't know that! Monkey!" As the insult left her lips she sucked them into her mouth, trying to take it back. She could feel her father's disapproval as sure as if he was standing beside her. With the widest green eyes she stared at the waif. In hopes of getting past her words, even though they still hung like smoke in the air, she continued. "I'm by myself...because...everyone turns out to be like you! Liars." She took a step back to prevent and further pokings from the monkey and did her best to be a good girl. But the longer she marinated on the waif's words, the angrier she became. Her mouth tightened into a thin line and her hands balled into little fists, the nails on each hand carving half moon dents into her palms. "You make me so mad! Stop it!" She blew out a harsh blast of breath, sending the hair hanging around her face into a flurry. "How does your pa let you get away with being so mean?!" Against the formidable frustration of the monkey soldier, Chemar was doing her best to not lose control. It was important to her that this dummy not get the upper hand not to mention that she had so little hair left to lose. Instinctively her hand went to her head, just to check. She stood staring, her hand still clutched in her hair as her inner voice kept asking What is wrong with this girl? following that.. there always came...And why does she make me SO mad! She could not answer her own questions compounding the frustration even more. In the end she grasped at the only thing that might give her some answers. "Why do you hate me?"

[Sairque]

Soft. One little poke and the girl was already screaming bloody murder. Or maybe it was because Sai had poked something a little more tender than a sternum. Realizing her advantage, the scrawny girl puffed up to deliver more cutting blows about the stinky ape's aloneness. She stunk too bad and had too ugly of a haircut to keep people from running away. No one wanted to be seen with her! Her dumbness was written all over her chopped red hair! Why, no one with half a brain would do something as stupid as--everyone turns out to be like you! Liars!

Sairque puffed up as much as her bony little self could, fists just as tight but, in all likelihood, more ready to go to work. "I have to lie to keep from telling you how ugly you look with your cowardly haircut!" she squeaked right as the Ape asked after her paternal guidance, a question that sobered and streamlined the little soldier's fury into a certain and confident force. The newly created map flared to mind in conjunction with their last meeting and the lesson Chemar had taught her: To be loved was to be soft. To be soft was to be useless. To be soft was to be thrown out of Skyinarta. Her voice dropped to a low growl as her body found that same arresting stance she'd carry into adulthood with this same calculating anger.

The false size and stance she'd managed with the over-inflation of her lungs and the ridiculous jutting forth of her chest disappeared. Her chin lifted, shoulders broadened, the lines of her body, even distorted by the over-sized tunic, lengthened, strengthened, relaxed into something far more dangerously aggressive. "I have no father, I need no father," Sairque growled her truth, a fact that no being with any iota less power than a full blown God would ever be able to shake. The statement reverberated against a deeper chord within her, one that she while couldn't define nor understand it, the feeling of rightness was easily acted on.

In the next instance, with the next question, under the momentary clarity of self that wasn't terribly erudite, Sai examined her feelings for the ape.

"I don't hate you."

But her inner self had no further thoughts on why the ape grated on her as she did and so disappeared. Shoulders dropping, she shrunk back into the painfully scrawny girl that she was, nothing but scrapping power in those thin little arms. With nothing to add, and anger diffused, her eyes tracked off to the side where she was supposed to be tending her bendi.

"Why do you hate me?"

[Chemar Tisserand]

Chemar watched, as before her eyes something in the monkey soldier changed. Her ridiculous bravado and presentation faded, leaving behind something that was actually formidable and frightening. It was as though she'd finally grasped a thread of her real inner strength and now wore it as a shield against the world, or at least against Chemar. She studied her, listening to her jabs and insults, flying at her one after the other until she heard something that took her out of her own melancholy to another place altogether. "I have no father, I need no father." Everyone needs a father. The words played in her head, over and over as if on a loop, forcing her to see the advantage she already held over the monkey. No father. Chemar had trouble even imagining a world without her father, and she found that after the monkey's admission, she no longer had anything driving her to stand off against the waif in front of her. All she felt was wave after wave of pity for the girl and it virtually drowned out any other feelings for the immediate moment, as well as any words from the monkey that followed. The words were there, emerging from the new found strength of the monkey, and even as Chemar stared directly at her, she heard none of them. In reality, what she saw extended only to a few inches past the tip of her nose, her eyes were hazy and a little blurred as she tried like hell to wrap her mind around having no father. To Chemar, that idea was nearly unfathomable, and she could not imagine the void that would be created if her father were gone. With a near physical jolt, her mind snapped out of it's perplexed reverie and back into the verbal tussle with the monkey, but to be honest, the fight had left her. With a fresh perspective she watched the monkey. That familiar, slouching impotence had returned and she would not even face Chemar now, her eyes slinking off in avoidance. I'm done. Her mind reached the conclusion as she shook her head and looked at the monkey. Had she spoken.. Chemar tried to pull the thread of words spoken by the waif out of her recollection. "Why do you hate me?" "Hate you? She crinkled her nose in some amount of confusion. "I don't even know your name, and I don't think about you enough to hate you." Not entirely true, for her thoughts might now be plagued with some sadness for this pitiful girl. Guessing that pity would be far worse than hatred in the monkey's estimation, Chemar hesitated, but could not leave the words unspoken. "I feel sorry for you." She braced against the possible fallout taking several steps away from the girl, even to the point of possible flight, but she stood her ground and waited..

[Sairque]

From the impressive stature of an inch shy of pint sized, a direct line of sight to the kitchens proved unattainable. However, Sai's wide yellow eyes did manage to catch the sight of a Dek shoveling food seasoned with bat guano into his mouth. The scent registered right after the recognition of what that goopy stuff dripping from his hair was. See, see?! All she'd been covered in was mud. Kitchen lady was over dramatic. Finally, Ape managed to answer, though she only managed to do so by repeating Sai's question. The scrawny soldier monkey turned her eyes back to Chemar, amazingly without a single roll. Though they then quickly narrowed and screamed bloody murder at the girl’s presumption. What exactly grated against her nerves in Chemar’s statement wasn’t clear, but Sai didn’t need to analyze the situation to know that no one made her feel like this and got away with it. Especially not this weak drudge-to-be. Little good the retreat further into the dining tables did, Sai stepped into her as quickly as she fell back until the little soldier monkey, snarling, whipped her fist out again. “Don’t look at me like that!” She screeched unhelpfully. The blow didn’t fall on the girl’s chest this time. Her knuckles smashed into the Ape’s face, glancing off her jaw impotently and sliding back over her ear in the first flailing thrust. Without regrouping, she swung again, another awkward attempt from an unsteady footing that could land anywhere for all Sai really cared. Her left fist, only backed by the strength of her arm, shot toward the girl’s neck. They were hedged in, Chemar had backed them against a table full of diners, most of whom didn’t care about two little midgets scrapping. Those with their backs to the girls were barely bigger than them, anyhow. In the end, it wasn’t Sai’s thrashing attempt at punching that did them in, but a bit of spilled mashed tubers that sent the little monkey sprawling into the Ape who then went sprawling even further. One of the diners abruptly took offense to having his face shoved into his spoonful of slop. “What the petch?” he exclaimed, a red mark starting to show underneath the brown goop food spread across his cheek. The rest of the table’s eyes swung up to watch his reaction to the flailing girl’s intrusion but the spoons never stopped moving. They only had so long to eat before they had to get back to work. The kid had to have five or six years on them, and as he turned, he swept an arm out behind him to clear her away. “Get out of here, bird turd!” His prematurely meaty hand did what Sai hadn’t been able to, and the little scamp stared with perplexed disconcertion as he knocked Chemar to the ground. “What are you doing?!” she barked at the youth, leaping forward and attaching herself to his arm, both of her own wrapped tight as whipcord around it. Not a very successful tactic as the boy spun around on the bench and brought his other oversized paw up.

[Chemar Tisserand]

The chain of events spun up in such a blur that Chemar could barely keep up. Her attempt to put distance between the soldier monkey and her had failed miserably, and as she suspected, pity was an egregious assault on the waif's pride. In preparation, her whole body tightened as she tried to steel herself against the inevitable blow, and she winced prematurely, squinting her eyes until almost closed. The shock came when the monkey aimed for her face, and while the blow was not full force, merely tenderizing her chin for what would come next, that second blow pushed all the air from her throat, leaving her gasping and confused. As soon as she felt the solid lump of a kid behind her she knew, and a warming went off in her head. This is bad! This is bad! She didn’t even have time to react before she felt a plank of a hand at her back, shoving her with brute force to the floor. Without the time for fore though, she crashed down for not braced impact. The first thing to hit was her chin, unfortunately it ground into a knife that had bee displaced in the scuffle and the blade carved a jagged line into the soft skin of her chin. Blood spurted from the wound, in effect, assisting her face to slide more easily across the rough floor. Wasn't that handy? The impact forced her teeth together with an audible CLACK!, softened only by the presence of her tongue between them. If there hadn’t been enough blood before, there was now, running freely from her chin as well as tainting the aftertaste of her food with the subtle hint of copper. For a moment, she just lay there, raggedly gasping for the breath stolen by the monkey's second blow. Her chin throbbed, a heartbeat present where she hadn't felt one before, pumping her blood onto the floor. Her first inclination was to lie there until the fighting was resolved, or an adult stepped in to punish them all. But in the next moment she saw the monkey virtually launch herself at the wall of kid who had shoved Chemar to the floor. She was wrapped around him like a scrawny little snake, trying to squeeze the life out of him. Defying explanation Chemar pushed herself off the floor and went on the offensive, for some reason that remained unclear to her, she couldn't let the monkey soldier take him on alone. The first to admit she was not a fighter, Chemar tried in the span of seconds to plan an attack. With her jaw set in a bloody mess, she balled up her hand into solid fist and let it fly at the boy. To her credit, the blow landed squarely, off the mark, to be sure, but squarely. She could feel the bones in her hand compact as her small fist crashed into the side of his head. Like a jolt of lightning, a sharp pain echoed down her arm. It hurt like the dickens! The behemoth started to spin toward her, easily carrying the weight of the monkey with him. They were outmatched, in a brief moment; she thanked Nysel that the rest of his pudgy companions had not taken offense to the girl's attack. In a movement that seemed to take no effort at all, she boy's hand shot out and pummeled Chemar square in her chest. The small gasp of air she'd managed to draw was forced from her lungs in a spray of her own blood. The voice in her head told her to run.. repeatedly..but this time she ignored it. Mimicking the monkey's approach, she launched at the other arm, paralyzing it with a tangle of arms and legs. Once secure, she looked wide-eyed across the expanse of boy to stare into the monkey soldier's eyes. What now?! She mouthed to the waif.