Home is Where Your Shyke Is [private]

[Sondra]

TS: Winter 510 AV, Day 70 Sondra's "home" was a glorified room in the third tier of the castle city. It was a large enough space, but nothing astounding. As one of the cheaper abodes in the city there were no windows, only a narrow shaft for proper ventilation. The stone floors offered little comfort and warmth, it had never bothered the Konti before but now she had guests. In an attempt to add warmth to the obviously stark room, she kept the hearth well maintained. What few personal touches could be found were in the covers on the bed, white furs that had been worn almost to suede were layered between quilts in the silvery pastel shades of abalone, all reminders of other cities she had called home. On her bedside table was what might have been a mirror framed in silver. It was always face down and the Konti nearly hissed if asked why. Her first few days of peace had consisted of cleaning the dust that had accrued. Not much for housekeeping, she had to borrow buckets, but rags she had plenty. This afternoon, Sondra was on her knees with a damp cloth, fighting to clean what might have been rust from the floor. Thus far the rust-colored spot was winning. Her sleeves were rolled up showing an uncommon glimpse of her scaled arms. Some scales seemed to be fraying or chipped, but they were a striking iridescent mail nonetheless.

[Cathan]

Cities were not to the Kelvic's liking. Much stone and little green, its residents source of more noise and turmoil than he was comfortable with. In the wild you could run and run until mountains or sea stopped you, in so called civilization walls and buildings restricted movement and sight, forming a cage of brick and iron. Syliras was worse in many regards. One could walk the fortress endlessly without a chance to glance the sky and the winter's cold seeped through cracks and clefts, through the stone itself.

He had seen cities he found more appealing, yet he had seldom roomed more comfortable. When Sondra had offered them a place to stay, the Kelvic had slunk along behind Kendall, surprised to find her home rather inviting. Not crammed with furniture, the room offered the luxury of free space and lots of it. Without a second though Cathan had carved his own private spot from the woman's domicile, a corner far away from the hearth.

Now a small pile of pelts denoted the spot the wolf would roll on up at night. Beside it, wrapped in linen, sat a few hunting trophies he had come to collect over their journey. The fragile bones of no less than three birds, the skull of a hare and a vaguely star shaped stone he had picked up for a reason he couldn't name; other things. The rest of his worldly belongings remained in Kendall's saddle bags, untouched and potentially forgotten.

It did not need much to please the Kelvi. Most time at home he spend napping or sleeping, only breaking with his habits when he felt the urge for some company. Or food was to be had.

This afternoon he was watching Sondra.

His back leaning against the wall, underarms resting on his knees, the man observed his hostess with idle curiosity. A Konti Kendall had called her. The term sounded familiar, if little else. He had heard of deserts and jungles too, yet he did not know more than that one was renowned for its plant life and the other, well, was not.

He had never seen one of Sondra's sisters, he did not think. Amber eyes wandered to the scales covering her arms. In the flickering light of the hearth they shimmered in more colors than he could have named. Cathan had heard of a race able to turn into snakes and he could shift into a human. In his eyes there was one logical conclusion to that trail of thought.

"You know, there is one question troubling me since the day we met." The Kelvic cleared his throat. "Can you turn into a fish?"

[Sondra]

Cathan’s corner had been taken in stride by Sondra. She commonly called it “the den”. His grisly flourishes were looked on with an amused smirk. The bones were likely the wolf equivalent of flowers in the foyer. While the pile didn’t bother her, she would occasionally glance it over to make sure no small woodland creature was rotting in the furs. She got enough of dead bodies at Li Matua A question? What could Cathan possibly want to know that had lingered in his mind unspoken for so long? There were many things she didn’t want prodded at by others, so the inquiry made her skittish. "Can you turn into a fish?" Sondra’s look of deep apprehension broke suddenly with a snorting laugh. Goofy as the sound was, it was no wonder Cathan had never heard it before. When she had laughed prior it was seasoned with scorn. “That’s not the kind of question I was expecting.” It was wonderfully innocent. “No, you, idgit” she smiled still. “Does Kendall teach you nothing? I can’t turn into a fish.” Her eyes sparked with passing pride, “But I can swim like one.” Sondra pulled her ear forward and her hair back, showing the delicate fan of gills usually obscured. “Haven’t in a long time, though...” She let her hair fall forward again. “Sometimes forget I can.” She was staring empty-eyed at the bucket, remembering the tides of Mura. After long days of falling against the surf she could lay in bed at night and still feel the lulling sensation of the water washing over her. The seawater was bitter in the mouth, untamed and cold, not so different from the sight Avalis had given her. “Sunberth and Syliras are strange places. It is easy to drift from what you thought you knew.” Sondra began meandering back to the present. “The webbing is the quickest reminder, but I like my hands and feet covered for the most. ” She went back to scrubbing with a vengeance, trying to shake troubling thoughts. “Since we’re on questions, is Kendall your a-you know-,” she was struggling to find the term “Your bond person?”

[Cathan]

Had Cathan been his wolf self, his canine ears might have twitched on the sound of the woman laughing. So only his expression shift, turning from curiosity to confusing and near disappointed, before settling into disillusioned acceptance. Two, three seconds the impression lingered, then the Kelvic breathed out, a smile returning to his face.

"I only thought because of the scales...," he started, breaking of a moment later. Again he cleared his throat. "Kendall does teach me." Most of the time after Cathan had finally settled for a question to ask the young man. "Yet when I asked everything I wonder about, he would never come to stop talking."

The idea to cause his travel companion trouble seemed to bother the man. However, his concern became interest the second the woman pulled back her hair. With fluent ease the tall man came to his feet, already half closing the distance between himself and the Konti, when pale hair once again fell over most intriguing gills. Inelegantly he dropped backward.

"I swim," the Kelvic admit with the slightest hint of pride. "… but I am not very good. Ever saw a dog cross a river? I figure that picture describes it pretty well."

Rolling over, Cathan came to rest on his side, arms folded before his chest. He had considered making a joke on fish and cats, but the woman's stare into gray water let him bite back the words about to pour over his lips. Jokes were not his forte.

"If you like, we could go swimming."

His chin came to rest on his wrist as he continued to watch her. "Spring is approaching and there has to be a lake near the city. Maybe." Amber eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Unless you are a saltwater fi- woman that is."

Sunberth lies at the sea, the shapeshifter nodded to himself. It would make sense if her kind swam in the sea there. Certainly easier than finding a lake he found, profoundly satisfied with his own logic.

Sondra's last question let him snap from his random marveling. He came to glance at the fair skinned woman. In the first moment he was unable to answer her. A minute passed and then a second while the Kelvic seemed to mull the idea over. Finally he shook his head. "Kendall is... not my bondmate, no."

Not yet anyway. "I do think... he might ask me. Some day. Eventually."

[Sondra]

There was something about Cathan's offer to take her swimming that made Sondra want to scratch behind his ears. To him things were simple. If you missed something, you went and found it again. There was no hesitation, little fear and absolutely no psychological trappings. She resisted the urge, as it didn't seem proper. Also, she didn't want to tempt her visions into visiting her. "Sure," she agreed despite better judgment, "No shame in paddling. I'll show you a frog stroke, though. Much faster." Her eyebrow raised at his brief stumble. Fish/woman, he hadn't quite narrowed it down yet. It was a long and fairly awkward moment before he answered her question. She thought he had purposely ignored it, but that seemed more conniving than she was used to from Cathan. Trying to downplay the significance of Kendall's silence, Sondra shrugged. "Eh, he'll come around. Kid's so damn shy, he may not even know you're game." She stopped wiping the floor so she could gesture with her hands. "I mean it seems like a big petchin' deal. Not something to waltz into blithely. Imagine how stupid he's feel if he asked and you said 'no'. Kid probably needs a hint." She wandered into a whole different train of thought. "But then you don't seem to be in a hurry. Maybe you want to be the lone wolf." Sondra could understand the perks of independence, even though both of them were hardwired to serve. "Konti have the drive to pair up too. It's like the big dream to traipse off the island and be someone's confidante and advisor." She huffed a mirthless laugh. "I get it, it's grand to be so important to someone. But you ever have something that's supposed to be the greatest thing you ever had turn rotten? I have." She was looking directly at Cathan, half knowing he had too. "Lady Lis, it's like biting cake and tasting sour milk. Makes you never want to try cake again."

[Cathan]

"Frogs are fast," Cathan agreed, the thought drawing a smile on his face. He was a man who smiled easy and often, not as if there was a joke only he would get but as if nothing could upset him. Truly there were few enough topics eligible to sour his mood. Hunger could do such a thing, but he was a good hunter and the problem rarely arose. When Sondra continued talking his expression however sobered. The smile did not fade, it grew more faint though, an afterglow of what it had been seconds ago.

"Kendall is shy." More so than the Kelvic could understand. It was a behavior rather befitting a young maiden than a man who had the strength to stand up for himself. A man who could pour living flames from his palms none the less. "He is gentle in general."

Quietly Cathan sat up once more, looking at the Konti with an near thoughtful expression. "When I asked him to bond he would agree." No doubt swung in the canine's voice making the assertion. "He would agree just because he is nice and would not want to upset me." He knew the thought should not bother him, yet it did. It became a nagging voice in the back of his head which stopped him from bringing the topic up in the young man's presence.

"How many men you think would turn the offer down?"

The question still lingered between them when the pale woman continued to talk and Cathan sensed the Konti understood him better than he would have guessed a human, even one swimming like a fish, to be able to.

His eyes found the stain on the floor. "It's an important decision to make. For him and more so for me. Not sure pity should have any part of it." He did not want to turn a burden and there was more to Kendall man than the young man let on. It made the boy hard to gasp and Cathan had a hard time guessing his friend's motivations.

"I am no loner." The said made his smile flicker up for the blink of an eye, like a flame fed by a sudden drift of air. "Once I thought I was one. Or that I could manage to live alone still, but I can't." There lay no bitterness in the knowledge, if anything it confused him. He hunted because he was hungry and he was hungry because he talked and run and did dozen of other things. There was no explanation for what drove him to sit by other people's feet.

"Kendall would not be my first bound mate. Nor my second or third." He had been owned many times, despite the nature of the bond which seemed to suggest otherwise. "If that had not been the case I might have asked him already," the Kelvic admit. "I am easy forgetting, but somethings are hard to forget even for me."

The idea sometimes troubled him. He lived for the presence and now everything was different, was it not? He liked to tell himself it was.

"I don't think this stain will go away."

[Sondra]

“I don’t think this stain will go away.” Sondra opened her mouth, but found nothing. She fell back on her haunches and chuckled bitterly. Her eyes watered from a quick pain as she threw the rag back in the bucket, her chuckle petering out. She wondered how much, Cathan was saying; if his straightforward mind harbored the same stupid regret as the rest of them. “It will wear off eventually.” Moving to her knees she added, “Time and stone will win where effort can’t.” Reaching for the rag again, she turned to a different portion of the floor. “I’m on my third attempt for ‘the call’. In the first try, that terrible, worming creature was born: hope.” She was wringing the rag, channeling old angers. “I have yet to smother it since, despite admirable efforts.” Sondra wondered if Cathan had tasted peace in his previous pairings, or if it was just the organic compulsion that drove him onward? “The first gave me many other things I can’t forget too. Things heavier than hope.” Why she was telling him this was beyond her. Perhaps there was something in the nature of a Kelvic that encouraged unfettered talk. Like one would chatter to a beloved hound. “Yes,” she agreed with Cathan’s unspoken assertion, ”It is a hard thing to believe similar stories won’t have similar endings.” When she was being overtly sincere (unless it was sincere scorn), Sondra found it difficult to look at people, so her eyes wavered awkwardly between her hands and Cathan’s face. “I don’t know many who would turn down an offer like yours, Cathan. But I know Kendall would be a fool if he felt anything but privileged and petching thrilled when asked.” Covering her unease she grinned and said, “Even if you and your ilk are a bit strange.”

[Cathan]

"Hope is not all that bad a thing."

The woman's chuckle had let the Kelvic rise into a half crouch. For the duration of a heart beat Cathan seemed about to reach out for her, drawn forward by a vulnerability he had never before sensed in the Konti. Quietly the moment past. Hands firm on the ground before him, the shapeshifter continued to watch her, his face bearing the cautious candor of a man who had at no time learned the more subtle nuances of civility.

He shrugged, then, agreed. "Everything changes."

Nature changed its dress four times a year and the moon's face turned even more often. For a being grounded in the presence, times past and days to come held little significance. Sometimes he thought about the future still. About hunts to come and hours spend dozing in the sun and he came to wish life would remain as easy as it was walking by Kendall's side.

Absent minded the Kelvic shifted his weight from one leg to the other. He sensed there was more to Sondra's words than he understood, yet he did not ask. He failed formulating the question proper. Finally he rose.

"It is harder for you than for me. You are more... aware." Bare feet hardly made a sound, when Cathan crossed the room to hunch beside the bucket. "While I hope to bound to someone who understands me – I might be content as long there just is someone," he confessed in sudden self knowledge.

Water swept against his toes and irritated the man moved a little to the side. "At times you do not realize the luck of a bond broken until a long time after." The Kelvic tilt his head to the side. "And it isn't until then you come to appreciate the things you have had." If you had memories to hold dear at least, for Cathan it were a precious few. Two, three seconds his expression was serious, only to become an amused smile when the Konti claimed his kind to be strange.

"Odd to hear from a woman with webs between the fingers," Cathan said mildly, his amber eyes coming to rest on the rag; her hands. "But you are right. I probably should have asked him a while ago."

He reached out one hand, but stopped before touching the cloth she held. "I can help you."

[Sondra]

Sondra flinched briefly when Cathan’s hand came near hers. Deliberations progressed between blinks. She had avoided reading his sins up to this point, as much as one could avoid a haphazard compulsion. Knowledge had a way of ruining a good thing. She liked the undemanding company, the warm living sounds of others. Even the loose schedule of eating, sleeping and rising brought her comfort. It was certainly better than eating bread alone while staring at the wall. But caution and sheer curiosity were resolute fighters. They wanted to know who she surrounded herself with. Every inch of ground had to be daily won anew. Her basic instincts were still crude appraisals of danger and the chances she had in a brawl with those around her. Sondra often found herself trying to quash the survivor’s diatribe. Not knowing what she wanted, Sondra only nodded and gave a wan smile. “Thanks, Cathan. You’re a peach.” As she passed a rag to his hands, the sin found her. Perhaps something about the shape of Sondra’s Djed was attractive to these memories in the Chavi, they rushed to her like monstrous children seeking their mother’s skirts. They were her little terrors, eager to clamor over her. She saw a boy, his body hollowed by want, looking into a cage where yellow-eyed Cathan lay. The boy had the feverish excitement of youth. He praised the wolf and promised to watch him, stupidly betting what was likely bread money on Cathan’s victory in the pit fights. Finding no heroes, the child was making one out of the wolf. Even when the wolf was torn and the copper lost, the boy returned with praise. In the midst of petty thefts, the boy tried to set the caged wolf loose. He probably had delusions of keeping him as a pet. A boy could be happy if he had a dog, couldn’t he, a noble heartbeat near his feet? Sondra watched as the wolf growled at the wounded boy and his opportunity for freedom. A man held the boy now, his grip turning the child’s skin the livid colors of pain. The boy’s legs kicked at the air and he threw his ill-gotten gains on the ground: a paltry offering for his life. Pitiless, the man urged his wolf to tear the desperate thief into portions. Each command was a hook in flesh, dragging Cathan forward. It was not the first time Sondra witnessed a sloppy death, but it wasn’t something one became accustomed to. This wasn’t the aftermath or the serene distance of an account. It was watching how easily a living thing could go to pieces. A whole life there and gone with blazing pain in-between. And Cathan could do it between his teeth, without the comforting distance of a weapon or spell. For him, the wolf protested. He did it for the master. His own paltry offering. Cathan might feel the memory surge from its dormant place, cresting on a wave of all the emotions that tangled around it. The feelings were a hundred varied hands lifting the sin high for Sondra’s appraisal. The passing glance of her hand had the effect of an emotional bloodletting, and the uncomfortable feeling of being known. The Konti stood sharply, struggling for her reaction. Hot contempt and profound pity made her body vibrate and her blood shiver, though neither feeling had emerged yet as the victor.

[Cathan]

Cathan took the washcloth, turning it once, twice. Cleaning was not usually a task he concerned himself with, an inconvenient responsibility he found best left to others. He had no eye for details, nor did he care for the rare few stains left behind with his often halfhearted efforts. And still...

I have cleaned a floor like this before.

The thoughts came sudden and unbidden, carrying with them faded images, smells, he had guessed forgotten. Tenaciously they wormed their way back into his cautious, surfacing from the dark corners of his mind. He blinked.

Stones shimmered red in the light of a smoky tallow candle. Through he open window seeped brisk sea wind, breathing winter down his neck. The body was gone, only a browning blur marked the corner where it had laid slumped. The image of the boy was vivid in his memories; so red, so pale. His stomach coiled into a tight knot – and he felt a satisfaction not his own. Eagerly the emotion seeped and dripped through the bond, nesting in his head, breeding. A thief. That was what he had caught, a burglar stealing... he could not even have said what. Something precious to the old man. It was good he had gotten him. Good Garkin was pleased.

Was it not?

The concern became a quiet whisper in the back of his head and it repeated with officious persistence, and and again, impossible to ignore. Deep down he knew he would get none of the appraisal he had hoped for, no gratitude.

The scene changed, turned green and warm and sunny. A man talked, did well so. Not Garkin, but a man sharing a certain quality with the old criminal. Neither his personality, nor his profession, something other. Cathan called him master, sometimes, when he fell back into old habits. The Kelvic listened to a voice, able to charm innkeepers to rent out their best rooms for little money, a voice which would always receive a more than decent price selling pelt and meat. With every word his memories seemed more distant, more pale until they felt far away. The impression was not as perfect as it once had been. Cracks had appeared in the walls keeping his past buried. Regret was leaking through. For a second he closed his eyes.

When he opened them again the ground was closer than before, his breath drawing ripples on the layer of dirty wash water which covered the floor. He had slouched forward without noticing. Clumsily he reached for the cloth he had dropped. The Kelvic straightened his back. Somewhat. He was not one to remember the past, yet now it was weighting down his shoulders, dragged in the open for everyone to see.

Amber eyes darted towards the Konti. The woman stood now, her face while not void emotion unreadable to him. He adverted his eyes, cleared his throat. Despite the warmth he felt a shiver running down his spine.

"A-Are you alright?"