Flashback The Grey Season (Billie, Haasha)

513 AV, 11th of Red Stone. An odd meeting on the way to Syliras

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While Sylira is by far the most civilized region of Mizahar, countless surprises and encounters await the traveler in its rural wilderness. Called the Wildlands, Syliran's wilderness is comprised of gradual rolling hills in the south that become deep wilderness in the north. Ruins abound throughout the wildlands, and only the well-marked roads are safe.

The Grey Season (Billie, Haasha)

Postby Haasha on June 6th, 2014, 5:14 pm

513 AV, 11th of Red Stone

Yellow Stone season, and rains and mistrals came early. Climat was colder here, and something had to be done about the warmer clothing before those rains and winds would take her by the breath. A cold note of panic crept upon her each time she remembered the raucous, desperate choking cough in the slums of the streets. Those were the goners, her mother used to say. They had nothing - no money for treatment, no money to cover themselves, no wits to steal enough and not get caught. Poor goners, her mother used to say, and then she usually smiled and added something encouraging. They two did get by much better than the goners. Free like the wind. Petching cold wind.

Her mother was gone for almost ten years now. She left in the late Green Stone season, somewhere between the eighty fourth and the ninetieth - days on that run were a blur. Except from her, Haasha never had any people she wouldn't be wary talking to. She knew, why. People were dangerous. Some tried to kill her when they saw her. Some tried to take things (which, strictly speaking, didn't belong to her, but it was of no concern to them) from her. People didn't like her. But sometimes, she felt an ache deep inside her ribcage. It felt like a stone tied to her heart and to the insides of her neck, heavily pulling those down to the guts, and it made her wish for strange things. Then she felt very much miserable, but after some time, the feeling subsided. Maybe, it was that wish to see a friendly face which people experienced, loneliness. Maybe, it was her body fighting some goners' disease. She learned early and, she believed, quite well - noone could be trusted, and nothing should be asked for. Maybe it was the breaking of those rules that got her mother killed. The half-blood didn't know.

A cold gust made her shiver, and she moved closer to the camp fire - neatly placed inside a circle of stones, just on the edge of a small grove.
"Dz-zaush-h, I need warmer stuff." she hissed through her teeth, and her own voice was somehow a comfort to the pang of that weird pain in the chest and the throat. No, not the goners' disease yet. "Or I won't survive the winter."
Not surviving the winter was never in her plans. Not surviving wasn't even suggested in general.
She rubbed her shoulders above the fabric of th clothes, fiercely, and stretched her hands out to the fire. She was sitting with her legs tucked under herself, and it made them fall asleep slightly, but it was better than freezing them off. Now and then, she would, with a small groan, stretch them to warm her feet against the fire and rub the calfs, otherwise remaining a small hunched figure in the dirtiest white clothing, too light for the season, head covered and pale face visually a livelier tone from the flame light.

It was three days from Syliras. The next passage would start at dawn, but it was too cold to sleep. She could turn her back to the fire and hope that she wouldn't get burnt... she probably would. Haasha felt her lids dropping by themselves.
Some sound did keep her awake, though. Footsteps which were too close, noticed when she dove out of the tired drowsiness and momentarily setting her in a state of alarm - on her feet, staggering from her left foot fallen asleep, hand on her mother's dagger, a simple rough sheath falling into the grass. She took several steps back, only luck helping her avoid running into an unearthed root, and stared. Her other hand shifted towards the tree trunk, as if she considered climbing it in case of danger, even though means and possible speed of doing so were far from evaluated.
She stared. In complete silence, with lightly widened eyes, almost absolutely still.[/size]
Last edited by Haasha on June 10th, 2014, 7:42 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Haasha
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The Grey Season (Billie, Haasha)

Postby Billie on June 7th, 2014, 2:36 am

Image

Stay awake… keep going She thought to herself as she trudged through the trees, which now all looked the same to her. It was cold and her legs were screaming for rest. On top of all that, she had no idea why she was going She couldn’t set up her shelter until she found a clearing. In the distance she could see the hazy outline of smoke raising. The idea of a fire was so appealing to her right now that she let out a slight whimper. Sadie had taught her many things, but surviving in the wilderness was not one of them. She was surprised she was still alive.

She desided she wasn’t going to survive for much longer if she didn’t go towards that fire. Of course, whoever had made it may very well be unwelcoming, but maybe she could strike up trade. She had an abundance of supplies, another cloak, lots of food and water. She could even trade miza’s for a night’s warmth.

She could see it now. A single dancing red flame in the distance, and sitting close by was a silhouetted figure, outlined by the firelight. She crept closer, unable to contain herself. Billie knew NO ONE would appreciate being snuck up on in a place like this, so she looped around the figure and approached front on. Her hand clutched no weapon, and she looked too tired and bedraggled to be thought of as any sort of threat. In shaking common tongue she said “May I please share your fire. Maybe I can offer up something you need in return?” She offered, pulling her coat closer around her figure.

The stranger was intimidating, and pale now that she could see… her? She couldn’t quite tell weather this was a female or not, or exactly what race the figure inherited its, frankly monstrous looks from. They eyes were Dhani, but she didn’t look like any Dhani she’d ever come across.

This person must be a mixed blood of some description. The way they brandished a dagger and stood on alert was unnerving and Billie found herself backing up and holing up her hands in surrender “I wont hurt you if you don’t hurt me, lets make some sort of accord!” She said loudly, hoping they understood common tongue. None of her language skills would help her communicate with this person if she didn’t. “Okay?” She asked, slowly lowering her hands.
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The Grey Season (Billie, Haasha)

Postby Haasha on June 7th, 2014, 11:19 am

The pale golden eyes narrowed in suspicion, and blank stare turned sharp. It scanned down the clothes and hands of the stranger, and the things she had with her. The half-blood scowled, and slowly moved closer to the stranger, her look darting to the dark shape of the sheathe in the grass only for a moment, and then, blinking only once, fixing on the human.

The human looked like a goner. Tired. Cold. An easy prey for a night hunter. It was dressed like a boy, but if it was a boy, then his voice was too high and too soft.. Just as the skinny, pale face. An attractive one, whatever the gender. If washed. Which wasn't the case.
The word 'accord' caught the half-blood's interest. They were in the Wildlands, of course, and noone could catch or judge her for, say, murdering the stranger... but, on one hand, it would be best done with the stranger asleep, and there was no guarantee the stranger wouldn't do the same; and on the other hand, if she meant no harm and meant trade, then she had no weapons... was that human a fool, joining someone in the wild, weaponless? Was that a trick? Has the universe granted her a late night prey today? It had some things, after all...
No. Even if she could kill the human, it wasn't profitable to loot the body, she decided. All the things the human had weighted too much, and Haasha had her own things to carry. Also, hardly food or water which weren't fresh could make a good meal, while other things... she didn't know if they would make trade, even if she knew a person.
The human was a goner and all of her things were not the interest, the half-blood decided at last. The danger of the human, however, was still to be evaluated.

"Sit." the voice was hoarse and quiet, words rolling from her tongue as if she had to put tought in articulating.
The half-blood nodded sharply at the place by the fire, opposite from where her own road bag was, and moved to the latter, sheathing the dagger and sitting down with her legs crosed, resting the weapon on her lap and keeping a hand on it. As she moved, her face never turned away from the stranger.
"What can you trade?"
Last edited by Haasha on June 8th, 2014, 12:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Haasha
"Noone will come to help me. Nor you."
 
Posts: 53
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Joined roleplay: June 5th, 2014, 1:06 pm
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The Grey Season (Billie, Haasha)

Postby Billie on June 8th, 2014, 11:50 am

Image

Relief swept over her, though she was careful for her face to remain neutral. She nodded her thanks and warmed herself by the fire, feeling slightly better already. She’d left her horse tied up out of sight in the shadows. Sula had been too tired to carry her, so she’d walked ahead to find somewhere to make a camp. However making a fire with her hands numb would have proved to be a challenge and she was glad to get off her feet. She didn’t answer for a few long seconds when the stranger asked her what she had to trade. “Food, water, I also have a spare jacket if you are in need of warmer clothes.” She told her.

She told her all of this, but kept her guard right up, looking for any flash of movement from the stranger’s hands. She’d need to be ready to block an attack, probably in the form of a stab, or swing of her dagger. The woman probably though she was a weakling. She didn’t feel the need to tell her about Sula, or the weapon she kept under her jacket just in case. Of course, she was pretty good with unarmed combat as well. There was no need in offering up her name either, unless the conversation called for that.

Billie placed her own bag by her side and continued to warm herself while keeping her eyes on the stranger sitting across from her, trying to be meek so that she would be underestimated. Her pride would just have to suffer a few blows if she was going to stay safe out here. And pride never came before survival and that was how Billie lived. Lacey had taught her that her pride wasn’t as valuable as her life in a very confronting way. “Just let me know what you need and I will try to oblige.” She added after being quiet for a little while
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The Grey Season (Billie, Haasha)

Postby Haasha on June 8th, 2014, 5:34 pm

That was acceptable. What was not was the comment on the clothes - a childish pride stirred in the halfrbreed. It sounded like a taunt. Of course she needed warmer clothes. It was a mistake to hope the summer would last long enough...
"I'm not weak." she felt her heart warm with anger. However, she wasn't angry with the girl - she was angry with herself.
"The jacket will do." she stated, putting the dagger off from her lap, into the grass right by her side.

She kept quiet for awhile, then averted the look from the stranger and reached into her backpack for an apple. And a knife. If she'd try to do the big bite, her fangs would probably let out the stuff for digestion, and she didn't always like her food as a jelly with twisted taste.
She remembered briefly the time when her mother would treat her with sweet apples. Naruya made them with honey and nuts and baked them without peeling the apple. To her, it made not much difference, but she knew Haasha would prefer to chew rather than scoop out. With the half-baked, hot apple, sticky from mead, the half-blood could enjoy both, and do it without poison. Only a stick or a spoon of some kind would be needed... The thought only could make her mouth watery. If only she could remember the exact way, maybe...

"There are strangers nearby, and what am I thinking? Apples." her eyes darted back to the girl, as if she could read - or snatch - the memories. She then packed the backpack and buckled it tightly. The dagger rested inside, as well.
"I guess we don't need to talk more. Pass the thing - and I'll climb for sleep." she said, standing up with her whole backpack held by one hand, and slowly taking a step to the stranger, around the fire.
Haasha
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Posts: 53
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The Grey Season (Billie, Haasha)

Postby Billie on June 9th, 2014, 5:25 am

Image

Billie caught the flash of anger, but she couldn’t think what she had said to make the stranger angry. She was, however, after studying the stranger’s face, sure that it was in fact, a female. Her voice was distinctly higher than what it would be if it was a man who was speaking, though her voice sounded rugged, like her appearance. Still, the woman didn’t express her emotions in words, so Billie ignored them. “The jacket it is.” She said rummaging in her rucksack and retrieving a slightly worn black winter jacket.

Billie watched the woman reach for an apple. She had a far away look in her cold eyes, as if she was remembering something. Billie simply continued to warm herself over the flames. She wondered how she had got to this point. After Lacey’s death she had left Kenash so quickly. She should, logically, have hung back and planned her journey a bit more thoroughly, then she wouldn’t be entered in an uncomfortable deal with a rugged stranger. Although she couldn’t say she wasn’t curious about the lady. She hadn’t said much, but her eyes spoke of a great depth.

Billie jumped slightly when the stranger locked eyes with her. Billie found herself uncharacteristically looking away, as if she’d been caught out doing something wrong. But then the stranger packed away her weapon and stood up, asking Billie to hand her the jacket so that she could sleep. Billie stood up as well so they were on equal grounds, nodded once and then handed it over gingerly “It’s old, but it will do the job” She told her “I may as well stay awake. Now that there is two of us, we may as well be safe.” She suggested as she settled back down by the fire, pulling her own coat closer around her lithe figure. “If you wish I can awake you when I get tired, and we can do it in shifts.”
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The Grey Season (Billie, Haasha)

Postby Haasha on June 9th, 2014, 12:27 pm

The half-blood blinked at the human woman and nodded. When she approached, her suggestion that it was a female, after all, strengthened. The cheekbones were flat and the jawbone was narrow, the chest was flat (just like hers), but their voices were compromising. Voices gave away feminine nature more than anything to her. The small lower tones only very heavy women had, also sometimes the ones who smoke - those tones didn't always make the voice rough, but they scratched the hearing a little bit, like a metal key against the wood. Women voices, her mother's voice and even those shouters at markets, they were birds. And water flows. And her own voice was like the shuffle of leaves with the wind's low hum in a narrow passage. They both were women, the half-blood decided. Not that it mattered.

She looked at the sky. The moon's pale face hid behind clouds, but its silhouette could be seen. It's been already half-way through the night. Sleep would be bad if divided in halves, and she wouldn't sleep well enough anyway - alerted for the stranger's moves and with a hand on her dagger to be prepared for anything. If the sleep wasn't gone at all with this sudden intrusion. She wouldn't say that, however. Instead, she took the jacket, stepped back, putting it on (marking it was too large for her, but, indeed, warm), nodded curtly and went on with her business. With her things collected from the ground, she picked a tree closest to the fire - the one she wanted to climb before, and gave it an evaluating look. It had a branch which she'd have to jump to reach Above it were two branches, one slightly to the side and higher than the other, forming a 'bench'. Yes, there she could sleep.

Turning with her back to the tree to keep the stranger in peripheral vision, she retrieved a small thing from her backpack along with the dagger, and then, with a large swoop and a turn to better her throw, made the backpack swing over the lower branch, holding it by the end of the strap. The backpack's weight tugged her upwards, but nothing tore. Exhaling quietly with relief, she made a knot around the strap's beginning, thus making the backpack hang on the branch. Then, spared of weight, she jumped up, gripped the branch with the tips of her fingers, fixed the grip, and climbed onto it, clumsily, helping herself with shuffling the feet against the trunk. Straightening and balancing in a sitting position, she pulled the backpack towards her, untied the knot, settled it on the 'branch bench' above, and gave the stranger a wary look before climbing further, to fasten the backpack's straps on the branch above the chosen sleeping place. She made sure there was no other way to reach the backpack but by climbing the same branches she just did, and then relaxed a little.

Sleep wasn't coming, even the fragile kind that she used to have. The half-blood curled on the branch wide awake, and was glancing at the fire now and then through half-opened lids. Time was crawling like a giant swamp snail.
"If I don't sleep, I won't walk fast enough, far enough tomorrow. I will be weaker than the stranger. Maybe, we're equal now. Maybe, I just don't know that I already am." Haasha forced the thoughts into her own head. "I have to drift off."
Half-asleep, she started humming under her breath. She didn't remember the song quite well - she was too young when her mother stopped singing it, but a couple of passages were still clear in her memory. Even if the recurring motive might sound eerie to anyone else listening.
Haasha
"Noone will come to help me. Nor you."
 
Posts: 53
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Joined roleplay: June 5th, 2014, 1:06 pm
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The Grey Season (Billie, Haasha)

Postby Billie on June 9th, 2014, 3:02 pm

Image

The way the strange woman moved, paranoid, always keeping Billie in her sights was unnerving. Billie made sure to keep her own movements slow and unthreatening, in case they were read as an attack. She sat by the fire again, happy to have the heat, and watched the stranger make her ‘bed’ up for the night. Billie had no idea how to climb, but the way her new acquaintance did it made it look easy. Even if it was a bit shaky, Billie would have fallen off in a matter of seconds. She caught the wary look and averted her gaze again, looking instead out into the wilderness. She was tired, but good at staying awake. Often her sleep was shallow when traveling anyway. She had trained herself to wake at the slightest disturbance.

The stranger was humming an eerie tune, probably half asleep. Billie tried to ignore it, although it sent chills down her spine. She wondered what it was that she was humming. After a little while she began to know the basic tune.

In the stillness, she found her mind wondering to strange places. What would happen if she did see an enemy or a bandit out here. She had a horse, so she could easily escape and leave the stranger to fend for herself. That is probably what the woman in the tree would do if she was standing guard. After she’d worked herself into sleep-deprived paranoia, she ordered herself to stop. She imagined her child self being lectured by Sadie. It was strange how many memories of her adoptive mother were of her being told off for something, or disciplined for failure. Yet she held so much respect and love for the woman, because Sadie had loved her, even if she didn’t always communicate this.

She was alone again now, stuck with a stranger who probably wouldn’t be much company even if they did travel together, which was unlikely right now with the lack of trust of friendliness between the two. How she missed Lacey’s company. Silences between the two were never uncomfortable or full of tension.

But who knew what the morning would hold? Bells past by agonizingly slowly, and Billie found herself drifting in and out of sleep against the trunk of a tree. She didn’t really have the strength to disturb the stranger, and she no longer saw the need. When would the sun rise?
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The Grey Season (Billie, Haasha)

Postby Haasha on June 9th, 2014, 7:47 pm

She curled and straightened, froze and curled. It was no good, either way.
The leaves shuffled - Haasha moved down, on the lower branch, and made herself fully seen. The sleep had definitely decided to leave her for the rest of the night, and she was never a big fan of tossing and turning. Not with her choice of bed. She sighed, tiredly, and decided that she had not a single reason not to honor the deal for shifts to which she agreed, since the insomnia has taken the best of her.

"Hey. Hey there." her quiet, raucous voice called out to the stranger. Drowsily narrowed pale eyes reflected light from the fire, before she turned her head and the angle changed. When she made sure she'd attracted attention, she stated. "Your half's over. Go to sleep. I'll stay and watch. As agreed."
She then sat on the lower branch, dangling her feet in the air and holding tightly with both her hands. She wasn't coming down - from her place there was a better view. The jacket hasn't been as warm as the fire, but if she'd curl tightly enough, as she did in her futile attempts to fall asleep, or move to make the blood run, she'd probably be fine. She also had a dagger with her, and an ability to make noise if anything decided to hunt the camp down.

Humorless thoughts of walking on the other day and the necessity to probably come down to keep the fire burning made her sigh and start fiddling with the dagger. The fire could stay, though, she thought. It'd burn out straight about morning, and then it'd be time for apples. And walking.
The good thing about the city she was heading to was the tavern. One night for a bath, and a bed. And off, as soon as she'd have some other peoples' stuff to keep her buy.
Haasha
"Noone will come to help me. Nor you."
 
Posts: 53
Words: 40921
Joined roleplay: June 5th, 2014, 1:06 pm
Race: Mixed blood

The Grey Season (Billie, Haasha)

Postby Billie on June 10th, 2014, 1:52 am

Image

The shuffling of leaves made her look up. It had been half the night now and she was reconsidering not waking the stranger. Luckily she didn’t have to decide, for the woman sat up and called out to her. What a relief it was to hear that, although the idea of falling asleep around this stranger was a little nerve wrecking. Still, she just had to rely on her reflexes.

Half asleep now, Billie just nodded “Yeah. Thanks” She mumbled drowsily as she crawled out of the sleeves of her jacket so she could wrap it more tightly around her neck and shoulders, she moved her rucksack under her head as a sort of makeshift pillow. She took the sword the had been hidden in her jacket as a precaution and placed it inside her bag, but within reach. She lay heavily on her stuff, so that if the woman would try and rob her, she’d also wake her up in the process.

She closed her eyes and drifted into a fitful half-sleep. The noises of the night kept waking her, and so did paranoia. When she did sleep, dreams of predators and bandits haunted her, and her face read expressions that were carefully controlled when she was awake. The ground hurt her back and she often moved in her sleep, adjusting her position. But, she did sleep; thank the gods, even if it were for a few meager bells, and even if that sleep was shallow and writhe with nightmarish dreams.
White= Speaking common
#BF0000= Speaking Nari
#4040FF= Speaking Fratava

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Arvo
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Billie
Love, Loss, Live on
 
Posts: 128
Words: 84502
Joined roleplay: June 1st, 2014, 3:09 pm
Race: Human
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