Out of Step.

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Not found on any map, Endrykas is a large migrating tent city wherein the horseclans of Cyphrus gather to trade and exchange information. [Lore]

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Out of Step.

Postby Allarel on March 29th, 2010, 10:07 pm

Season of Spring, Day 19, 510 AV

The season of renewal had come, and Zulrav’s breath was tickling the tender new growth in gentle, sinuous puffs as Endrykas hummed through the daily business of a cool, sunny spring afternoon. Endrykas possessed a peculiar music all its own, and this movement rang with the voices of its people—children at play, happily barking dogs, the women’s chatter and men’s rich laughter cut now and again by a sharp tone or the squeal and whinny of younglings cavorting through the surrounding herds. Their music folded into the strands of the web, an unseen skein that rolled out, forward, then gathered again in time with the rhythm of nature.

Allarel, too, lived as a part of it. She knew that to be true. Yet, in the months since the glassbeak had spoken she often felt out of step. Still familiar to others, but a stranger to herself. Thus she’d come to the pavilion of her childhood while she fought with the puzzle of her path.

Merran was old now, his once raven-dark hair ravaged by gray, his profusion of black windmarks faded on sun browned flesh loosened by the ever-tugging jaws of age. Her adoptive Ankal had welcomed her, regardless. Two years were not yet passed since she left his hearth and went to become Bingen’s second wife. One year was not yet passed since Bingen’s death.

Seated cross-legged on a trampled clearing behind Merran’s pavilion, Allarel lifted an unfletched shaft in both hands, tilting it this way and that to double-check that the rod was straight, and that the grain ran true and evenly from nock to tip. A twist or angle all but damned the shaft to break upon impact. Satisfied with her inspection, she dipped one hand into the pot of linseed and commenced to massage the oil into the wood. It joined its brethren soon after upon the vertical wooden rack at her elbow. Tomorrow, the shafts would be dried and ready for fletching.

Tomorrow.

Allarel selected another rod of wood and examined it carefully. She could not see tomorrow. For all the months spent recuperating under the gentle ministrations of Rak’keli’s healers, some part of her felt broken. She sensed it when the thunderheads rolled in and a dampness of impending rain saturated the air, a dull ache and perceived weakness in sinews and bones that had been rent, cracked by the glassbeak’s powerful jaw.

She listened to Endrykas living around her while she continued her scrutiny of the shafts to be oiled, but as from a distance, as if the Sea were waves and the surf’s soft rush muffled her ears. Then the balance of the web shifted, ever so delicately, and Llyah was walking up behind her.

The other young woman hesitated some short distance from her foster-sister and watched her a few moments before she said, “Come inside, Alla. We’ve unwrapped the winter cheeses. I want you to try some.”

“Later, please.” Allarel racked another oiled shaft and glanced up through tousled dark plaits at the girl. The woman. Nearly nineteen, Llyah was a year her senior, married to a third son from another Emerald pavilion. She would be at her husband’s pavilion rather than helping her mother with the midday meal were it not for Allarel’s current visit. “Another few chimes, and I will.”

Llyah made an impatient noise. “You’ve been at this all afternoon. They’ll still be drying tomorrow!”

“And your cheese has been curing since midwinter! Please, Llyah! Let me be a while more.” She did not have to look up to see the sting her tone inflicted on her sister. She could sense a reproving ripple in Muxu’s tranquil state of mind where the black Strider was contentedly cropping grass nearby. Allarel ducked her head and stuck her fingers swiftly into the linseed oil.

With hurt apparent in her voice, Llyah nonetheless pressed on, dropping into a crouch next to Allarel’s stack of unoiled rods. “No,” she said clearly. Her chin jutted stubbornly; the usually merry blue eyes shone hard in that sweetly-featured face. “You came to us. You came to us, and all you’ve been doing for days is arrowcrafting and sleeping! I know you’re mourning Bingen. I understand you need to take time alone for—”

“It’s not about him,” Allarel cut in, lifting a defiant gaze to her sister’s. “I sorrow for his death still, yes. I do. I’ve other matters on my mind. Please try to understand.”

The blond woman arched her brows in exaggerated surprise. “Other matters. Oh, yes—the matters you and Father talk quietly about in the corner until the fire burns itself out. The matters that send you brooding out to the hunt before dawn. These great matters, I see, that you cannot even tell me about.” Llyah tossed her tawny braids and straightened. She tromped away across the grass without a backward glance.

Allarel ducked her lashes and huffed absently at the strand of turquoise-painted hair that slid alongside her nose, struggling to refocus attention on her handicraft. The wood, the oil, the nocks she had so carefully cut—they were all real. Tangible. They had substance, purpose, a certain beginning, a predictable end, an established method, a cycle known to her.

The questions went on nagging at her all the same, a disconcerting buzz at the back of her consciousness that she’d been unable to entirely quell.

What if the vision had spoken truth? What if the boy were real?

A flash of irritation tightened her jaw, dragging the deep hollows beneath her cheekbones deeper still as the most hateful of her plaguing questions once again took shape.

What if the boy were real, and she did nothing?
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Allarel
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