[Flashback] Where the Grass Meets the Sea (Nel Sayo)

[Vanator]

Vanator secretly thanked whatever god or goddess had smiled on him, for his lunge was over extended and poorly aimed. The unfastening of the woman's belt buckle was either a freak accident or a divine joke, and a sudden crimson flush spread across the Drykas' face as he watched Nel fumble with the falling belt, then topple to the ground. Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth (though, honestly, he would), Van stepped over to Nel, his own chuckling mingling with the pirate's laughter. He waved the tip of her rapier in her face, not close enough to be threatening, but certainly close enough to indicate he had the dominant position. "A horse ride it is then, my friend!" His dark eyes sparkled with gold flecks, jovial and full of the moment.

[Nel Sayo]

With that reminder, the pirate girl all but coughed on her own laughter, half-swallowing it down with a terrified gulp as well, and she started shaking her head as she sat up. Shoving moonshine curls and braids out of her face, and with a helpless wave at the rapier he held, she stayed on the ground and started frantically grasping for a reason not to go through with their bargain.

"No, I--" she sputtered. "-- Can't. I -- hurt my --" Hand, leg, arm, face. "--Foot!"

She blinked roundly up at the Drykas, a blush already climbing brightly into the high slopes of her cheeks. Her fingers fidgeted tellingly with the belt buckle she still clutched. Tapping the buckle against the teeth. And then she pointed at the offended foot.

"Ow -- see? I can't. You can't ride a horse with a broken -- foot -- right?"

[Vanator]

Vanator stared down at the woman, a curious sight of stark contrast, snow white flesh and silvery pale hair clothed in black cloth and leather from neck to toe. He lowered the pirate's weapon, his chuckling prolonged by Nel's own gasping laughter. A feigned sympathetic smile graced his face as the Drykas nodded at the stream of excuses that the seafarer spewed out. "Oh, well, that's a shame that you hurt yourself. We better get you up and see if you can walk on it. Lucky thing for you, its much easier to ride a horse with an injured foot than to walk on it!" Van jabbed the tip of the rapier into the sandy dirt, as he had seen Nel do, and extended his hand out her. "Now lets see how bad that foot is. I hope its not serious, though if necessary, I am willing to amputate it with my ax." His grin widened, his eyes bright but traced with a reassuring warmth.

[Nel Sayo]

“Well it's obviously not that bad,” she muttered, squinting up at him even as she reached for his hand. Hers was small and soft, though dotted here and there with the sorts of callouses one might get from tying ropes and gripping sails. She let out a huge sigh as he hauled her up to her feet, and didn't bother trying to pretend her foot was actually broken once he said that riding was easier to do with a wounded foot than walking. “All right. All right!”

Defeated, she bent down and retrieved his hand ax, offering it back to him with one hand while she drew the rapier from the sand with the other, resheathing the blade in one smooth motion.

Then she leveled poor Vanator with those huge blue eyes, and jabbed a very serious finger into his chest.

“You're riding with me,” she informed him, in no uncertain terms. “I will not ride it by myself.”

It. The horse. Thing. Beast! It. Nel might never be beloved of the Drykas culture for her startling aversion to equines, but at least she had cultivated a very healthy respect for them besides. More or less.

[Vanator]

The Drykas suppressed a smile as he helped the Konti up, both of them knowing her ruse had failed. Vanator accepted the hand ax from Nel and thrust it through his belt. Still sporting a slight grin, he looked down into the sailor girl's rich blue eyes, framed by alabaster features. They reminded him of his sisters, and his heart softened at the sight of them. "Alright, I will ride with you, if you can assure me your brother will not run me through with his rusty old sword." Leading Nel over to Zura, Van pointed to the contraption strapped to the horse's back. "That is a yvas, you sit on it, and can hold onto this." His hand rested on the bar along the front of the yvas. The Strider's head turned to look at the humans, only to turn back after receiving an admonishing glare from her rider. "I promise you she will behave, and certainly will not eat you. You will go up first, just grab the bar and pull yourself up." The horseman leaned down, lacing his hands together palms up so she could use them as a step up into the yvas.

[Nel Sayo]

Nel said nothing one way or the other about her brother; if Syon saw the Drykas riding around with Nel on his horse, she had no way of knowing how he'd react. Either he'd laugh so hard he cried, or he'd certainly come at Vanator with that well-used cutlass. She tried not to dwell on things she couldn't control.

She was all right walking over to the horse. She even nodded that she understood how the yvas worked. When the horse turned its head to look at her, though, she startled and tried to back up -- right into Van.

"It looked at me," she squeaked, a rush of color enlivening her cheeks. "Oh gods, it looked at me."

She took a minute, clenching her eyes shut, to calm down. Just deep breaths and some sort of mumbling about how horses ate greenery and oats and things, not human flesh, at least not most of them, or Konti flesh for that matter, because Konti were more like fish anyway, and horses definitely did not eat fish even if occasionally they may have eaten some other form of meat...

Trembling fingers reached up, eventually, and grabbed onto the bar of the yvas as Van had shown her. She grabbed onto his shoulder with the other hand and stepped into his cupped palms, scrambling gracelessly up onto the horse's back.

And once she was there, she slammed her hands over her eyes.

"Okay, I did it, does this count, can I get down now?" she sputtered.

[Vanator]

As Vanator stood, stooped over with this hands cupped, he rolled his eyes. "Of course she looked at you. If someone was going to climb on you, wouldn't you want to know what they looked like?" He chuckled at himself. "Zura simply wants to get to know you." After Nel deftly hoisted herself into the yvas, he stood back to look up at her. Zura stood stone still, and Vanator gave the Strider a knowing look, a reminder to behave. Returning his gaze back up to the nervous woman, the Drykas chastised her. "No, this does not count. Riding entails the moving from one place to another. You have not moved. And open your eyes, the view is great from up there." Placing one hand on the yvas behind Nel and the other on the horse's back, Van launched himself up onto Zura, settling in behind Nel. "Now, just relax and hold onto the bar." His instinct was to put his arms around her, to keep her in her seat. Instead, the horseman placed his hands on his knees, wondering if he was to reach his arms around the pirate girl, would he would receive a swift elbow to the gut. With a subtle squeeze of Van's knees, the horse stepped forward gently, moving in a slow walk along the sandy ground.

[Nel Sayo]

“Well it seems to me that if someone was going to climb on me, I would stab them, and so that look it gave me probably meant the same thing, if you're so sure that horses think like people do, which I am not at all sure of, instead I think they think like horses and this horse might want to eat me.”

Nel continued on with her hands flattened over her eyes, and she stiffened a little when Vanator climbed up behind her, but more because she couldn't see anything than because she was uncomfortable with him being so close. If anything, after a moment, she relaxed a little against him. One finger slid away from her eyes, and then another, and slowly she lowered one hand to grasp the yvas bar as he instructed.

So with one eye open, she looked around.

“Okay. Not so bad.”

She was nearly about to say that she liked the view very much, when the horse moved. Her other hand fell away from her eye and grasped the Drykas' knee, while her knuckles whitened on their grip of the yvas. But she didn't dive off the creature, and that was a testament to the bravery in her heart.

“Where is it going!” she squeaked.

[Vanator]

His wide grin unseen by the young pirate, Van was quite amused by Nel's response to the horse. He found it curious that someone who could ply the raging sea in a giant wooden bucket would be so horrified by riding a simple animal. Van was very happy that she managed to summon the gumption not to bail off the horse as it moved forward, but the surprisingly strong grip Nel had on his knee told him it was only with great courage and effort. Nel's squealed question brought a quick laugh from the Drykas, and he shifted his hands to his hips. "Zura is only taking a short walk around the camp, no need to fret, brave seafarer!" Nel was struggling to contain a panic, Van could see. He felt a pang of guilt for teasing her so, a very small, short lived pang. "Do you want me to hold onto you, so you don't fall off?" His intentions for offering to hold her were completely harmless, for the most part.

[Nel Sayo]

"Yes," the terrified pirate said immediately, without even attempting to conceal how very much she wanted someone holding onto her. "Yes, yes I do, took you long enough -- I could definitely fall off this thing at any moment and get trampled by hell-flaming hooves, couldn't I."

She shrank back against him even before he had time to put his arms around her, but perhaps miraculously, she didn't cover her face with her hands again. Blue eyes were wide and looking around, and though she cowered, she didn't try to block out the experience. Because she was brave, if also a little bit ridiculous.

Her fingers gripped the yvas just a little tighter with every step the horse took.

"I think you should tell me why you like horses so much," she decided, nodding a little to herself. It would take her mind off the actual horse, maybe, and Nel loved stories. Especially ones in which fear and villainy were overcome by bravery and dashing recklessness, since that was kind of her thing. "You know, because maybe if I know why you like them, I'll...um...start liking them to, or something."