Shrouded Road(Kaja)

[Kaja]

Kaja saw him tense when she drew nearer to him. It saddened her to think that he would fear her. She wondered what made him think she would hurt him? If anything she showed a more playful, caring side then a fearsome side. However, she did not know what he was, or if maybe she should be a bit more afraid of him, but that wasn’t the case. He had shown no aggression toward her yet, so until then she would fear him. When he nodded at her questioning for his name she took it as his name. So she would continue to call him such. It fit him in a way to her, so she smiled back at him thinking that at least they had some kind of introduction out of the way.

The young migrant laughed as her little sentence seemed to open a floodgate of words to tumble from the young creature beside her. It was obvious he had no clue what the words were he was saying. However, it gave her delight to see the expression on his face as he said the things. His voice was rich, deep, yet had a dark tone to it, yet it wasn’t awful to hear. It was actually very melodious to hear. As he kept speaking words, and letting his mouth and tongue roll around them she realized he seemed to be finding delight in something that maybe he hadn’t before. Allowing himself to experience it in a different way.

She smiled some more, and laughed. So he did know some common, though she wondered if any of the words he just rambled out made any since to him or had any meaning to him. She cocked her head at him, he was unusual to see, tall, muscular and the fur that covered most his body was lighter black almost the color of stone gray, but the longer bits of fur on his elbows and knees were a deep rich dark almost like midnight. She found him fascinating to look at. His long dark braid that cascaded down his back begged for her to unloosen it and run her fingers threw it. It looked so soft and silky. She refrained from doing such, because he seemed so jumpy around her. His eyes were very different when she first had seen him and looked at his eyes when she were far away from him the looked to her as black as onyx, but now that she was closer she realized that they were not so, but a rich almost midnight bluish color. He was not altogether unpleasant to her, though he was much different then she had ever seen before in her young life. An oddity to her, though nothing she would not keep as a friend.

He seemed to go on and on with his deep rich voice on whatever common words he knew, sometimes going back and repeating words that seemed to please him more to be said then some of the others. He then finally came back to himself, and her, who had been sitting silently listening and watching his pleasure. He then turned back to her and seemed to be asking her a question and pointing at the fire. At first she could not make out what he wanted. Did he want to know what it was? What she thought of it? Or did he just seem to practice the tongue more? She didn’t know, and she looked slightly frustrated into the object he pointed at. Her mind mulled on how she could approach this it seemed he was anxious to learn more. However, how to approach all this she was no scholar, or teacher, she barely knew how to write, or read. She only knew Common Mizharian, not from the lack of others trying to teach her, but from her utter lack of not wanting to learn at the time.

She looked back at Exodus and then tilted her head, a smile forming on her lips as she formed something in her head. She pointed at the fire, and said, “Fire.” Then paused. Then again pointed at fire, and said, “Fire,” Then pointed at Exodus, “Warms, Exodus.” She smiled at him and then pointed at the fire again and said, “Fire warms,” Then pointed at herself "Kaja." She then thought for a moment about all the words he sprouted and at the moment she could only help him with one as she pointed at the cloudy night that had enveloped them while they had been contemplating each other, and said, “Cloud cover.” She wasn’t sure if he might be confused as where she was pointing could also be the sky. It was the best she could do though maybe he would understand it?

[Exodus Scythewing]

She laughed as he babbled, and he proceeded to repeat the word ‘cabbage’ to express his own amusement. When their laughter ground to a halt she looked at him with a smile and pointed back to the fire. “Fire.” She paused. “Fire,” she pointed at the Zith, “warms, Exodus.” He looked at her hard, then at the fire, trying to make sense of what she had said. The bit of Common he had learned was coming back to him. She was describing the temperature: warm. ‘Warm’ was somehow related to ‘fire’. ‘Fire warms Exodus’. Fire burned, it made heat. Was ‘heat’ the same as ‘warm’? It made sense in context. He looked around for something he knew. He preferred to refrain from putting his own hand in the fire, so he found a stone. He knew the word for that, didn’t he? “Understandable,” he said, gesturing to the rock. He pointed at the fire. “Fire.” He tossed it directly into the embers. “Fire warm understandable.” It seemed simple enough. The stone was in the fire, and was being burned. He smiled, pleased with himself, then pointed to the fire yet again. “Fire.” He pointed to the sky. “Cloud cover.” He pointed to the girl, “Kaja,” then at last to himself. “Exodus?” He considered. Maybe he would be able to teach her some Zithanese. Her word range would be limited, but he might be able to teach her some of the softer sounds. He thought for a suitable title for the fire, but most were irrelevant. “Er… inferno,” he said, gesturing. The massive blaze that matched the word was rather similar to the small hearth in front of them, but the likeness was crude.

[Kaja]

It was fun to see recognition and understanding in the young males face, as she explained her language to him. Or at least was trying to the best she could. Whether she was doing well or not was to be debatable. She was no scholar by any means. In fact she seemed in her opinion that she quite possibly should be the last person doing this. However, it felt good to be helping him, and actually getting him to understand some things. She smiled at him nodding her head when he started to point at him and her then fire, and said, “Yes.”

However, when he started to try to make his own associations she started to get a bit confused. Was understandable him thinking that the stone was understandable in her language? Or was understandable the word that was stone in his language, and he was trying to teach her some of his words. A look of confusion came onto her face as she tried to figure out how to proceed as he was understanding but was he just using the wrong word that she had to correct, and then how did she make him understand that he was partially correct but not quite. She tilted her head in thought her light brown eyes rolling to the now darkened sky, the stars and their fire the only light source.

She couldn’t let him down, he seemed so hungry to learn, and toward the end to teach her his language. She didn’t want to offend him again now that it seemed like they were getting along, having fun, and trying to help each other out. “Ummm…” She blinked her eyes going back to his as she tried to figure out what to say, and do next to help him in his inquires. She picked up the stone and in order to not make him feel bad if he had pronounced it wrong and the word understandable had nothing to do with his language she worded her response like this, “Understandable,” pointing to the stone, then to herself “To Kaja is stone, or rock.” She then smiled and then said, “Yes,” She threw her stone in the fire and said, “Your understandable, my stone or rock is getting warm.” She knew she was making it more complex and hoped that didn’t confuse him. But he seemed to understand fast which was good for her. Maybe he had been taught some common at some point and it was just to get him to remember what he had learned? That would be good for him.

Now for him this was going to be harder. She was a simple person, with simple thoughts. She got confused, and lost focus on more complicated, and abstract things, as her animal side was prominent more then her human, which thought in simple terms. She looked from him to the fire and thought well yes she supposed it could be an inferno in a very abstract way. Maybe he was now trying to help her with his language, and she rubbed the side of her head as she tried to make some sort of correlation, but without anything to go on from her language to his she was a bit lost. Her eyes became a bit saddened that she was having a harder time catching onto what he was trying to teach her more then him. “Fire, is inferno to you?” She pointed to fire, when she said both fire and inferno, and then to him when she said you. Hoping that made that would make since to him, but unsure.

[Exodus Scythewing]

OOCWhen Exodus’ speech is bolded, he’s speaking Zithanese. He’s trying to teach Kaja a word for fire, but the only one that he could come up with in her hearing range was ‘inferno’. “Um…” She picked up a stone of her own. “Understandable,” she said, gesturing to it, “to Kaja is stone, or rock.” She tossed it into the fire. “Yes, your understandable, my stone or rock is getting warm.” He was confused beyond measure. Was it ‘understandable’ or something else? What was the thing’s name? He picked up another and held it up. “Understandable? Stoneorrock?” He tossed it over to her and scratched his head. Common had always been confusing, putting words in different orders and moving sounds around in patterns that didn’t make sense. Zithanese was a great deal easier, but he knew for a fact that most of the people he was likely to meet would not be able to speak the language. There was another word she had said. Name? He thought he remembered. He pointed to himself. “Name Exodus,” to the fire, “name fire,” to the sky, “name cloud cover,” and to her, “name Kaja.” He pointed to the stone once more. “Name understandable? Name stoneorrock?”

[Kaja]

Kaja shook her head as she saw, and heard the confusion in Exodus’ voice. She sighed, because she knew it was her fault. She wasn’t very good at this teacher thing was she? “Sorry,” She murmured, even though she knew he probably wouldn’t understand the word. She scratched her forehead in thought, frowning. She was trying to figure out what to do next. It was apparent that he was hungry to learn. She was hungry to learn too, but it seemed that his language was a tad more difficult then the one she spoke. It had a lot to do with more vocal sounds, vocal sounds that she wasn’t sure if she could even make, let alone mimic. It made her sad, that she couldn’t share in his language. It seemed unfair.

When he finally seemed to understand that Name was something he could use as an explanation. She nodded her head emphatically, even excitedly that he had made that connection. “Yes! Yes, that’s right.” She had caught the rock somehow, as she sometimes didn’t have the greatest control in her human body, especially when she had been so long in her natural animal form. It took her a few days of just being non-stop in her human form to get used to its gangly limbs, and the way to work them. She liked the more compactness of her animal form sometimes. With the rock in her hand she then looked at it and decided that saying both words was confusing him, so she went with “Name Stone.” She wasn’t sure how to really explain what the word understandable really meant. She knew it, but it would confuse him with his limited language right now so she dropped it for now.

She pointed to what they were sitting on, which was a fallen log. “Name, log.” She pointed to the ground and said, “Name, ground.” Then she looked at him and then at the fire cocked her head and frowned and tried to wrap her head around his language for him. “Name, inferno?” It made since to her but was she supposed to think about the sounds or the fact that it was a version of her word? She had heard his language when he was trying to speak to her, and it had been more about vocal noises, then really words, so maybe it was the noises that it made with that word that meant fire to him then the word she would use. She wasn’t sure, but the process of trying to figure it out without being able to ask questions because he didn’t quite yet understand her was frustrating her. She growled deep in her throat with her frustration, and then realized that he might think she was angry with him, and she reached out a hand and patted him and smiled. “Exodus, good”

[Exodus Scythewing]

“Name stone,” she replied. “Name… stone,” he said carefully, placing the addressed object back on the ground. She looked about, then pointed to what they were sitting on, then to the earth below it. “Name log. Name ground.” She pointed at the fire and looked at him. “Name inferno?” Her replication of the word was crude, but understandable. He nodded approvingly, but she had already condemned it in her own mind ad growled. He growled back to remind her of his presence and sentience, and she looked at him. “Exodus good,” she said, reaching forward and patting his shoulder. He screeched as only a Zith could and twisted away as if he had been burned. Hissing, he beat his wings furiously and dust started to churn beneath them. Embers flew and the fire retreated as it was barraged by wind, but Exodus did not see them. He was more concerned with the spirit—Kaja, had she said? He hadn’t been completely sure about her, and was immediately convinced that she had been planning some underhanded attack. His wings managed to grant him lift despite his inconvenient location, and he circled once before landing on the tip of the megalith. He was more than a little nervous, but he was not stupid enough to leave all of his possessions behind.

[Kaja]

Falling on her butt after touching Exodus, Kaja looked up from the dirt as the young Zith ascended into the air apparently once again not to happy with her. She tried to rack her brain on what she might have done to get such a reaction. She was born from a family history that was very loving affectionate and playful. Touch was no big deal to her, and she probably did it more often then people would like. Especially to those that she cared about a lot, now she wasn’t that sure about how she felt with her current companion. She would like to get to know him better if they could just bridge the communication gap they had. She watched as he circled the darkened night and finally settled on landing on the top of the megalith that was near them. She sighed, and started to heft herself up from the ground that his wings had knocked her too. She dusted off her bum, and stood there looking up at him. Now what was she going to do?

How was she possibly going to communicate with him up their, and make him understand that whatever had upset him she didn’t mean. She put her hands on her hips for a moment thinking still looking up at the giant of the man on the tall pillar. He really did look quite exquisite up there with the moon light and stars as a backdrop of the silhouette of his frame and wings that were still spread wide. They were huge, he most certainly was a type of beast that she hadn’t seen much, and at least she didn’t remember seeing before. Though her memories of Syliras were fuzzy at best she couldn’t ever remember seeing such a person there, but she was sure she probably did. However, she couldn’t even remember her own family let alone others she might have seen in her past. She only remembered those that she had seen since her fall in the river and she had woken up on the bank.

She came back to herself and realized she still had the puzzle before her of how to get the big lug down. She supposed she wouldn’t be touching him again if it upset him so much. She wondered if maybe he had an injury and she had patted it and he over reacted a bit about it. She wasn’t so sure about his temperament. He seemed like a pretty okay type of person. Could she call him a person? She shook her head bringing herself back from her chaotic thoughts and back into concentrating on the problem at hand. She rubbed the back of her neck looking down at the ground finally and just decided to first get him down. She looked back up at him and then yelled up to him while doing the come here gesture with her hand high up above her head hoping that he would be able to see it. “Exodus! Come down!” She waved her hand in the come here gesture again hoping that whatever had upset him he would at least still come down. I mean really she was a woman, who had nothing to her name, the only way she could possibly defend herself at all against him was in her dog form.

[Lariat]

Exodus Scythewing

Experience:

Socialization: 2 xp
Teaching: 1 xp
Running: 1 xp

Lores:

Run for your Jerky
Animal Spirits attack
Trying to comprehend common

Kaja

Experience:

Running: 1 xp
Teaching: 2 xp
Socialization: 2 xp

Lores:

Bat person?
Playing games
Trying to communicate
Attempts to soothe beyond a language barrier

If you think I missed anything just send me a pm.