A New Start [Jyn]

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

"I've had to steal to survive," he admitted quietly as he began to strip the horses of their tack. He even took care of the pony, figuring Jyn could watch the proper care and feeding of horses and learn from his example. If he wanted to be Drykas, he would have to know his way around a horse. "I think you'll be fine once you've earned your freedom again." Dohaina's yvas was easy to hang up, but Horse's saddle went upside down to air out. He was going to train his Windrunner to carry him with an yvas eventually, so Horse would feel like a proper Drykas as well. He unloaded the pony and brushed them out one by one so they would be comfortable and, ultimately, healthier. "I'll just see to the horses and we can set up your tent, and then... we should probably think about cooking something to eat. Do you mind if I see to your pony? You can play with Lilani."

[Daejyn]

This seemed bass ackwards to Jyn, to have Sama'el looking after Ugly Pony, for one thing, Jyn was supposed to be the one doing the work. "I don't mind, but I have been caring for him alright. Brushing's the easy part." well, that was when Ugly Pony wasn't being a jerk about it and trying to side step until Jyn was pinned against something or knock him off his feet with a swing of his big scraggly head. "Mind yourself, though. He knocks me flat every few days. He's sour tempered." Jyn was fairly sure it wasn't just his own lack of skill either. The price tacked on to his debt for Ugly Pony hadn't been much.

"I can't cook much, well, at least not so as that you'd want to eat it." he smiled a little, it was a skill he just didn't have. He hoped to learn of course, that along with everything else. "Lili's fine for the moment, its better to keep her where she is until we're more settled." She didn't even crawl yet, but it never ceased to amaze Jyn how fast she could roll away. He watched Sama'el work carefully, in hopes to be able to repeat what Sama'el was doing for himself later.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

Sama'el seemed to have an overdeveloped sense of hospitality, but he was trying to make it clear from the outset that Jyn was an employee rather than a slave. Perhaps this wasn't necessary for Jyn himself, but it was for Sama'el. He didn't want to be the one causing someone else's misery, but rather a transformative, catalytic person who made life better, or gave someone the opportunity to make their own life better. That would be a true triumph over the bandits and slavers and masters and the like. He just nodded and saw to the pony, who was certainly ornery, but Sama'el was not afraid to slap a bitch that bit him and the pony seemed to sense that and anyway, Sam was grooming him so well, it looked about to start purring like a cat. Some people just had the touch. "We'll have to break Ugly Pony of some bad habits," he agreed. "And we can just fix something simple together. Won't get better without working on it."

[Daejyn]

Jyn nodded, a bit impressed that Ugly Pony wasn't giving Sam too much of a problem. "I never realized how little I knew until I was here," Jyn said, a bit quietly. He'd been good at what he'd done with the Zith. The problem was that he'd assigned a specific handful of things, and anything beyond that... he wasn't just unskilled, he only had the vaguest idea of what to do. Horses, for example. Before he'd come here, he'd never once dealt with one. Cooking, he understood the concept, some things needed to be cooked either to make them taste better or to make them edible, but it wasn't just a matter of throwing edible things with other edible things and hoping for the best. No, certain edible things went together better than others, and then sometimes you had to add water, or grease, or certain seasonings. He'd fed himself and Yaana during their travel mostly on foraging. He knew plants, and plants could be eaten raw, or baked at the edge of coals.

"The world is bigger than I ever imagined." A thought that would have scared some, but not Jyn. He liked it. Yeah, sure, he always was one beat off it seemed, but that awkwardness was worth a lot. It amazed him constantly, to see what the Drykas did and made and how they interacted with each other. And this was just one group of people. He was given to understand that this was still but a small corner of the world. The possibilities were exciting.

He shrugged at himself, though, and grabbed his gear, moving it over to a likely spot near Sam's tent, working on unbundling the tent itself.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

Silently Sama'el accepted that he would have to take Jyn under his wing, teach him how to manage in the wider world that he might do the same for Lilani. Once the horses were properly groomed, he whistled shortly for Dohaina's attention and said a few words in Pavi that alerted her to the need to keep the new horse from wandering off. She was the herd mother now. That done, he stepped over to help Jyn with his tent as soon as he had it unstrung. "It certainly is. I've seen Cyphrus, Sylira, some of Taldera. Mizahar is wide and varied." Crouching down, he picked up the edge of the tent and stepped back, unfurling it.

[Daejyn]

"Really?" Jyn asked, impressed, picking up the poles to start erecting the structure. He was fairly practiced at this end of things at least, having taken down and put up the tent on a few occasions. For her part, Lilani didn't seem perturbed by Jyn's bending and shifting, wide interested eyes peering at Sam from where she rested against her Daddy's back.

"I don't even know where most of those places are." he shook his head, he seemed to realize a new area of ignorance at every turn. "What did you find most interesting, in your travels?"

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

"Well, these prairie plains are part of Cyphrus. Sylira is on our northeastern border..." He pointed in the proper direction. "You just head toward the sunrise and a little to the left. Taldera is north of Sylira. The Goddess of Winter lives in Avanthal, which is far north in Taldera. It gets really cold there." Obviously. The tent was rather quick work with two people working in tandem to set it up, but Sama'el was careful to do everything properly. Even if they were in a separate tent, it was his camp, and he wanted them to be comfortable. "Most interesting?" He thought for a moment. "Oh, it's the people who are most interesting. And I was most excited to return to Cyphrus after ten years of exile. It's important to make someplace home, and I hadn't really allowed myself to do that until I came back. With my family and the pavilion gone, Endrykas is home." There was a shy glance for that sharing, vulnerable for a moment. He imagined that Lilani was home for Jyn. It made him wish he had managed to marry Dymphna in time and could be expecting offspring of his own by now.

[Daejyn]

Jyn nodded as Sam spoke, standing back and looking the tent, shaking a pole briefly to be sure it was steady. He was sure it was, after all, he was good at doing it himself, and considering Sam's tent was bigger, Jyn assumed Sam was even more skilled. Still, it was always best to check.

"I bet, people always are the most interesting. There's such variation." Even just among people who were supposedly alike. He nodded again as Sam said that Endrykas was home. "The longer you're here, and the more connections make... the more home it will be." He smiled at Sam. "I can't exactly speak from personal experience," he'd never had anything resembling family, or even well trusted friends. "But from what I've seen, each connection in a persons' life is like the poles and anchoring of a tent. Each one serves to keep you rooted. You don't need to have a lot, but if you only have a few they should be strong." He reached back to touch Lilani again.

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

"I agree," he said, and when Jyn was done nudging his daughter, Sama'el reached out to take his hand, to make one of those connections. "Welcome home, Daejyn and Lilani. May our tents keep out the wind and rain." He grinned. "I hope that didn't sound silly. Anyway, make yourselves at home. Let me know when you start to get hungry and we'll put something together. I want us to be a team, you know. Working well together when we're together, and managing separately when the Watch takes me away from home." He walked a few paces over toward the earthen pit that held the cook fire, just checking to make sure all was in order. Fire was his element now. Eldon had unlocked the ability within him to call fire, but old habits died hard and magic was not meant to be used capriciously, so he maintained his hearth the best he could. Glancing back at man and daughter, he felt a pang that he was not already making children of his own, one of the most important parts of a pavilion: its heirs. He smiled, though. She seemed like an ideal baby. "Might I hold her sometime?" he asked. "Who knows when I'll have children of my own."

[Daejyn]

He clasped Sam's hand firmly when it was offered, then shook his head. "No, it didn't sound silly at all. Whenever you're hungry is fine with me." He was still getting used to regular meals, and he alternated between never hungry and always hungry.

He shrugged carefully out of the sling Lilani was situated in, tossing the long colorful fabric into the tent as he settled her on his hip, bouncing her a little, making her giggle. She was a very sweet looking baby, with a shock of curly dark hair, and wide eyes, though they were still baby-blue-gray, not having changed to whatever color they would be eventually.

"You can hold her whenever you like," he assumed Sam understood that he meant within reason, of course. "She's not shy with strangers, not yet anyway." She might be eventually, most babies, in his experience, went through that phase. He walked over toward Sam with Lili on his hip, so they could more formally meet each other.