Closed Sharing Shoes

[Mayra]

11th of Summer, 515AV
4th Bell, Afternoon
The Ruby District

"So you don't have any hybrids?"

"No." Hesbri looked at Mayra suspiciously. "We've got some hens that lay well or we have roosters that produce good meat. Rarely do the breeds mix, they just won't." Hand motions highlighted the horsewoman's common as Mayra bent over the chicken coop.

"Alright, alright. Two pullets and a cockeral, I just need some laying eggs for me."

"Why not a Capon then?"

"What if I want to breed them? Anyhow, fertile eggs don't taste that different." Mayra winked at the bright eyed horsewoman who only rolled her eyes as the halfbreed scooped up a handful of barley for the pullets. She watched the chickens for a few ticks, picking out the breed she liked, before opening her palm to let the barley scatter across the hard packed dirt. Like, well, chickens, the animals flocked to her feet immediately, including the two Reds that she wanted. Stooping slightly, Mayra scooped up the chicken, careful to allow the scrawny legs to rest between her fingers and keep the feathery wings pinned under her thumbs. A round of furious clucking greeted her and Mayra twisted her arms a bit to look over her pullet. Nodding to herself, she turned towards Hesbri, who already had her hands out, ready to take the pullet from her.

"Oy. I should be charging you another copper for this one. She's beautiful." Mayra only grinned.

"Well, I do work here. I know which ones are good."

"Then I think I can guess which one you are going to pick next." Mayra envisioned the grey speckled chicken that was widely known as the best egg layer in the entire coop, but shook her head, turning back to wade through the puddle of birds at her feet.

"Nah. I just want pullets, preferably Reds." She looked back down at the chickens, who had quickly finished off the barley and were starting to disperse or fight over the last tendrils. Before the chickens got too distracted, Mayra scooped up her other choice. She wasn't a very prophetic egg layer, but she wasn't broody, which was good.

Mayra turned to hand the chicken over to Hesbri in the same fashion as before. The once-Benshira took the animal and let her loose in the large cage as well. Mayra climbed back out of the pullet coop to grab another handful of barley. Then, she repeated the process in the Cockeral coop, choosing a Light Sussex instead of a red. If she wanted to breed the chickens, she would rather this hybrid than any other. Too bad The Pride wasn't interested in breeding chickens.

"Alright, here ya go." Mayra held out the coins to Hesbri for the cage and the birds. The horsewoman flashed a smile and pocketed them.

"I'll see you tomorrow Mayra. Glad I could help." The ever-pleasant woman gave a hand motion that Mayra was slowing starting to recognize at a salutation specific to the Earthshadow pavilion, although she wasn't sure.

Clutching the large wicker cage in her hands, Mayra set off from the Pride. It didn't take a very long time of walking with the large cage of chickens, who were gossiping nervously and moving about unsteadily, to find it was not going to be a comfortable walk. At least the Ruby District, which was her most recent placement of her tent, was not far from The Pride. It wasn't a particularly short walk, but she wasn't walking through the entire city, which was a benefit.

Once most all off the tents around her were solidly only hues of red, Mayra started to recognize where she was. She could see the painstaking maroon embroidered fabric of a clothing Pavilion that was only a mere few tents from her own dull white one. But as Mayra focused her attention on the tents around her, searching for the familiar path, she failed to focus on the traffic around her. It wasn't a particularly busy span of grass between pavilions. It was a rather large one, likely used for hcildren to play in or horses to graze. Near the long end of it there were two stacks of wood, and a lone nanny goat tied to a pole with plenty of grazing room.

It was not a busy clearing, which made Mayra feel all the more stupider when she nearly ran into the horse.

Of course the animal had seen her, and hadn't run over her, which she was thankful for, but she had gotten quick close, enough to scare her. A muffled whine fell from her lips as the half-Chaktawe looked up at the horse's rider, wide-eyed for a tick before her grip slipped. The cage sagged and the chickens chattered furiously for her carelessness. She could feel them falling over each other on the slanted floor of the cage, which did not help her regain her handle. So, slowly and awkwardly, Mayra lowered the cage the ground leading with the hand that still worked properly before standing up straight to see if the horse's rider was going to yell at her.

"I'm sorry. I-..." Mayra wrinkled her nose, remembering that common was not a language spoken. If she was correct the horse people didn't really speak a language, much as motioned one. She needed to learn some basic words in whatever language. "Well, if you can understand me, I didn't mean to. I wasn't watching." She tried to stammer through the apologies. If she talked enough usually the horsepeople would grow bored with her, see her as a foreigner and let her off with a harsh word and a glare. Being largely ignored by an entire city was difficult, but it had its perks.

Receipt :

For the chickens and things:

-4 cm for two pullets
-5 cm for a Cockeral
-10 gm for a medium size wicker cage

Total: -10 gm, 9 cm

Common | Tawna | Thoughts | PC/NPC Talking

[Arandia]

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Before dawn, in the summer, one may observe a brilliant yellow light some miles south of Endrykas, low in the horizon like a star that has come down to kiss the earth. It evokes Zintila coming down to heal Semele at the time of the Valterrian. As the red dawn spreads out across firmament, blazing banners welcoming another scorching day on the Sea of Grass, one might dream of Ivak’s fire rending and reforming Mizahar.

Arandia, awake before Syna, watched the sun rise and dreamed of it, a morning like this on the Valterrian, when the world held its breath for the cataclysms to come.

Beloved grunted under her, impatiently tossing his head to one side as if to say, ‘Wake up, woman, you’re dreaming again.’ Arandia stirred, stroked the side of his neck, and clicked her tongue. Beloved lifted his hooves and broke into a canter that soon became a thundering gallop, the rataplan of his feet waking up subterranean animals and at least five people from the Reddawn Pavilion.

Since they had settled in Endrykas for some of the summer, the workload had lightened considerably for Arandia and the rest of the Reddawn pavilion. Most of them were free to seek out employment in the city, or to trade. The brave and the reckless went out for adventures or for game on the Sea of Grass. Arandia had been using the early mornings to practice on her Strider, running short distances so that she could get used to balancing and moving with the current of his muscles under the yvas. Still others, like Carina, one of the older men of the Reddawn pavilion, took the opportunity for some extra moments of sleep.

“Hey, you!” he hollered. His head stuck out of the front of his tent, jowls quivering with the dry, cool air of the morning. “Ride your horse somewhere else! Some of us are trying to sleep!”
“You’re waking up my son!” a woman from another tent piped in.
“Go on!” Carina shooed.
It seemed to Arandia that their hollering would have woken up even more people, but there was nothing to be done except to hold her tongue and gallop away as she was told.

It was summer in Endrykas. Even in the early bells of the morning, much of it was already bustling with activity. Merchants put up their wares, people hung up their washing. Men and women were cooking breakfasts for whole pavilions. Arandia rode slowly through the districts, looking strange and even more diminutive on the full grown Beloved, or Beloved looking even more gigantic and muscular with a bird-boned woman on his back.

Down the Ruby District: first past Baultimes Barrel, where already there were drunkards taking advantage of the ease and abundance of summer. They were loud, raucous, but their laughter was friendly and no one bothered Arandia as she rode by. Then there was The Threaded Hide. Arandia worked there most days, weaving and sewing and attending to the smaller tasks of the business. Learning, at the same time, by watching Emphae Wovengrass’ old fingers as they flew across looms and looms of intricate weaving. They seemed so full of life. Young hands and not at all the rheumy fingers of a woman that had seen too many seasons. Today she rode past The Threaded Hide. Today was a day for other things.

Past the Silverbreeze and the Guided Horse with their nodding Striders and Semes in the Amethyst District. Past the smell of raw meat at The Spit Fire and the curious eyes of Zibris and goats in The Pride. Past The Hunter’s Allegiance, full of the fine hunters from The Emerald Clan who had set out to hunt in the misty light of dawn.

Arandia lingered outside of the medicine tents of The Opal Clan: The River Flower and the Healing Hoof. She watched them, in turn, as people and animals paraded through the tents, bringing their maladies and their gifts.

A man, tall, older, came out to the front of the tent and handed one of the patients a small vial of something clear and luminous. He said something to the patient, and the patient, a woman with a red lump the size of a small ball in her throat, nodded and gratefully handed over a handsome rooster to the doctor.

The doctor noticed Arandia watching. His gaze met hers, and he nodded decorously at her. Arandia dipped her head, too, shyly avoided the doctor’s gaze out of habit than anything else, and rode off again.

A clash of metal and the sound of grunting told Arandia that she had wandered into the Diamond Clan’s pavilions. They were always honing their skills, always loud and sweaty and brave, but moreso in the summer. The activity never seemed to stop, here. Arandia rode a little faster through this district; she didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire.

Finally, Arandia found herself at The Raised Sun. Dernan Sunwalker stooped over his writing, as usual, hassled by one or two Drykas men and at least one other foreigner, all talking over the other. Arandia laughed, and from there rode on to the peripheries of Endrykas.

There they were, all lined up from everywhere, all their tents in different colors, all of their skin. Some of them with two arms, some of them with six. Some of them with fair skin, some of them with blue. Arandia stayed there for most of the morning, pretending to admire their wares but mostly listening to them speak to each other. Their languages tickled her ears, and their clothes and their miens entranced her. She was like one of the naughty Drykas children who came to watch the foreigners, keeping their distance out of fear of their mothers but hollering nonsense to them from across that distance out of their curiosity.

“You look familiar,” one man suddenly said to Arandia in the common tongue. He was young, with eyes like hers: crystal, cold blue-green. They had the same sunbaked skin, like the color of bread. He had a thin mustache, and Arandia thought there was something strangely familiar about him too. It wasn’t just a Benshira recognizing the blood of another Benshira.

A woman ducked out of their tent, talking in musical Shiber about their food and how delicious it smelled, and Arandia felt her blood rush to her feet. The woman looked like an older version of Arandia’s mother: long black hair, the same crystal blue-green eyes. The woman saw Arandia, and her expression changed. The both of them, Arandia and the stranger, looked like they had seen ghosts.

“Ruhama?”

Arandia bolted. She rode Beloved through the pavilions, racing past the districts and back to the safety of the Reddawn tents. She rode so earnestly that she didn’t see the woman, even as Beloved dodged her and they scattered her chickens. Arandia, white as a sheet and out of breath, only noticed when the woman spoke. “I wasn’t watching,” she said in the Common tongue.

“Forgive,” Arandia said in Common. “Is hurt?” She slid off of her yvas, the tips of her toes touching the ground first, and went to help the woman collect her shopping. “Forgive,” Arandia said again, apologizing this time to the chickens. “Not see you.”

Her heart pounded in her throat and in her gums, and her hands were clammy. Whenever she spoke she sounded winded. But she was calming down; the strangers hadn’t followed her.
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[Mayra]

It took Mayra a second to realize that she was being spoken to... in the common tongue. She looked up again, pausing from worrying over her new pullets for a moment to look at the woman. "You're speaking common to me." She noted dumbly, watching the horseperson slide off her mount. And you aren't yelling at me. But she kept the last thought to herself, suddenly interested in the horseperson above her.

"I-- The chickens are fine." Mayra tried to smile sympathetically at the woman, who seemed much more distraught than simply running over a stranger would call for. "But are you... okay?"

She knew the woman had every right to brush her off and keep going where she was going, but the simple act of speaking to her in Common, even as broken as it was, made Mayra think this woman was kinder to foreigners than the rest of her city. She wasn't someone Mayra wanted to let go of so quickly. Trying to politely shoo the woman away from the chicken cage, which was probably soiled after the jostling, Mayra stuck out her hand for a handshake. "My name is Mayra. She place the opposing hand on her chest before motioning towards the kind horsewoman. Perhaps her common was more broken than Dravite's had been, but that wouldn't stop Mayra. After getting the woman's name, Mayra apologized again. "I'm sorry, I can't introduce myself in your language, whatever it is called."

Common | Tawna | Thoughts | PC/NPC Talking

[Arandia]

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“Okay?” Arandia repeated, brows furrowing. “Okay?” She shook her head; she didn’t understand what it meant. Most of Arandia’s Common had come from a book of fairy tales that her mother had bought her when she was younger. Arandia knew the word for “raven” and “love” and “end”, but not “okay.”

“My name is Mayra,” the woman said. Arandia’s expression cleared; her thick brows straightened. “Okay!” she said, made even more childlike in her rudimentary understanding of the language. “Arandia,” she said, putting her hand on her chest. Then they shook hands. “A-rahn-dya,” she said slowly for the foreigner. “I help.”

The chickens were making a ruckus in the cage, and they were drawing the attention of a few Drykas men who ambled out of their tents, chewing meat like cud in their molars. They laughed, grunted, pointed, thumped each other on the chests: “Look at this,” they signed and leered.

“I help Mayra?” Arandia said again, trying to lift the cage up to help Mayra. She took up the sides of the cages and lifted her knee, when the latch on the cage door slipped and out tumbled the chickens, one after the other, squawking up a storm. Beloved neighed and moved away from the ruckus as Arandia automatically gave chase and the leering men burst into laughter.
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[Mayra]

Mayra watched the woman test the work on her lips for a few ticks. "Okay, means 'Yes', or 'Fine'." She offered a smile with the explanation, trying to return the friendliness she was receiving. Suddenly, Mayra was very focused on the woman before her, interested in the language barrier as well as the unexplained kindness. Saron had explained that not all foreigners were so ignored, but Mayra was simply too different for any of the horsepeople to feel comfortable. She hadn't really liked her employer after that discussion, but it gave her an insight on her predicament.

Mayra stepped forward to grab the otherside of the wicker cage as Arandia picked it up, but the run-in with her horse had jostled the weak cage open, letting all the chickens loose. Just my luck. She heard the boom of laughter to her right, but that was easily ignored when the chickens begun running. "Oh no." Mayra dropped the cage immediately, taking in the unfortunate event. Comically, a few feathers rode the wind in wake of the frightened birds.

Mayra let out her own giggle, a more amused one than jeering and gave chase as well. It was immediately obvious how useless this act was. If the foreigner had enough experience with the chickens, she might have known what to do, but instead her mind ran blank. "Arandia!" She called to the woman who was helping her, before pointing to the chickens. "Help me herd them?" She suggested, trying to get on the other side of the biggest pullet as Arandia was. She made circular motions to show her words with her hands, trying to get the message through the language barrier.

Once she was sure she understood, Mayra crouched low and spread her arms out. The chicken squawked at her suddenly hunting position and turned to run towards Arandia. Running to the horsewoman's left, Mayra tried to move so that she turned the chicken in the other direction, angling the manic creature towards the Drykas woman as best she could. She felt like a child again, and she was enjoying the silly entertainment.

Common | Tawna | Thoughts | PC/NPC Talking