Breaking A Sweat [Faval]

[Seluj]

It was exciting for him to discover someone that could cook. Even if it was only a choice encounter, he wouldn't mind a free meal, and by making this happen they could both eat for free! It would be like having you own little cook out feast between the two of them. He didn't mind sharing for as long as he himself could start the day with a full belly. It was early morning after all and a good meal would give him energy to pack his day with productive things. This was him turning a new leaf after all. It didn't even matter if it was the best tasting thing, it was better than nothing. Maybe by watching him make the fire he could even pick up a trick or two to make it happen himself. If he could make fire then he could even cook his own fish. One step at a time right?

These day dreamy thoughts of grilled, smoked, salted and sauteed, fish with all the trimmings of a luxurious meal, spiced with herbs and stripped of bone leaving only the delicious melt in your mouth meat left was what fueled his chopping as he made work of the low hanging branch. It wasn't that thick at all, it wasn't like he had an axe and could just lumberjack the whole tree down, but the branch would do right? After the branch fell he would drag it along the sand from the tree line to where Faval was. He would then go to the thinner branches and chop at them. They were thin enough that one or two good wacks would sever them, leaving smaller and small fractions. "Can you work with this? I can make em' smaller if you need." He said, continuing to chop and slash at the brush. His muscles were still notedly still tight from his earlier experience but he had all but recovered. As he separated one chunk from another he would toss it into a gradually growing pile. The leaves were all still attached, but for the most part they were reasonably sized. He had more than enough wood there as long as it was used properly.

[Faval]

Faval sized up the wood being brought his way as he set the amateur pyro kit on his lap. He was honestly not the best at starting fires, which was probably best for the health of himself and those around him, but the man had brought enough wood over that even Faval could effectively get a fire going and probably have a few sticks left to spare. As Seluj closed the remaining distance, Faval attempted to take the newly acquired kindling from him but was forced to quickly retreat as the man went back to hacking away at the wood. At this point, Faval was pretty convinced that he just simply wanted to swing that sword around and didn’t really care about how small the branches were…or what hands he inadvertently lopped off. Faval nervously massaged his hands with one another as Seluj finished miniaturizing their fire wood. Once Faval thought it safe, he reached forward and snaked the large amounts of wood and leafen bits toward him and started preparing them in a way that he thought, which meant it was probably wrong, would allow the flame to grow the most as he set aside two of the larger sticks for use later. Hopefully they wouldn’t be lit aflame but given Faval’s propensity to screw things up, they’d probably be the only things he did actually set on fire. On second thought, it was probably best to take some precaution against his incompetence and get the sticks as far away from him as possible, it would give his new companion something to do other than menacing the tree. Faval threw the two sticks toward the man with the Gladius, the sticks landing in the sand a good four or five feet away from him before Faval called out to him in the same cheery tone.

“Whittle those to a point for me wouldja? The tree killer might work out!”

Once he was satisfied that he was clear of any wayward short swords, Faval got to work at the thing he was rather bad at. Last time he had tried to use these to make a fire, he was sitting above pieces of wood for an hour furiously banging them together in hopes that some kind of spark would be generated. Hopefully all the practice would pay off and he wouldn’t make Seluj wait an hour to start preparing to enjoy his fish…even longer to actually enjoy it. With his face pained with concentration, Faval began striking his flint against his steel and generating a rather pretty shower of sparks that rained down on the gathered wood…and proceeded to do nothing at all. It took Faval five minutes of tirelessly smacking the materials together to get the smallest flame which then immediately died. Thankfully, he cut his previous time down to a fourth of the previous wait and had a working fire up in fifteen minutes, sweat having formed on his brow at the exertion and his brain having completely blocked out whatever Seluj had been doing during that time. Once they had a working flame, Faval looked up expectantly for Seluj and more importantly, his roasting sticks.

[Seluj]

Seluj left Faval to the task of making up a fire. He himself walked back over to the fishing pole and plucked it from the ground. Waving it slowly side to side he would adjust the line and the hook within the water itself. Truth was, he was in the shallows of the ocean itself. The only fish that wriggled there way and thrived in these areas were the small ones. But just like small humans, or young rather, these fish were much more naive and were quicker to bite. Usually when the water was more turbulent it was more difficult because the hook and bait were tossed around in the water, but now the water was much more still now. He reflected on why it was calmer now than usual. Perhaps sea storms would generate swells out at sea that would miles away knock into shore, and there just was good weather out on the sea? Maybe, but that seemed far fetched. Perhaps because it was early the sea was just waking up like everything else? I mean, usually he never got to work early like this, so maybe that was the secret. He was surprised at the stir in the morning that at dawn he wasn't the only one up and going. To think that sailors drank all night only to wake up from passing out and go straight to the docks. In this case the early bird DID get the worm, because he was aware that jobs at the dock ran out fast... But still, that didn't explain the good fishing conditions.

But there was one more simple hypothesis. It wasn't windy! Waves on the surface of the water were in fact created by wind brushing over the water. It was pretty straight forward right? It was just a lucky still day and this would come in his favor. However he shook his head lightly to snap out of his day dream and pondering. He look over his shoulder to Faval and attempted to study how exactly he had come about making fire. It would be nice to, for future reference, figure this out. He seemed to be striking the flint against the steel that he had. It just so happen that he had a similar set, but didn't know thats what it was for. He almost seemed successful until the smolder he got from it would soon go out. Seluj was equally disappointed, but before he could continue to watch his attention was caught elsewhere. He felt a familiar tug in his hand on the fishing pole. What was this!? It was another fish already!? He was lucky to get one fish an hour, let alone two in fifteen minutes. This was exciting to Seluj as his attention snapped forward, so while Faval was working on the fire, Seluj was busy working on the second fish!

This wasn't something he could just yank in and pull to the surface, even though that had worked for Faval, the chances of him pulling it off himself were slim. It was only luck really! He would have to use a little skill to pull this one off, which was fortunate considering he only had little skill in the first place. As the first tugged one way, he would resist in the opposite direction, pulling the pole itself and lifting it at the same time to adjust the angle of the line. There weren't fancy reeling mechanisms yet so he would have to manually walk the fish onto shore. This was the trick part, as fish were quick and willing to abandon the bait when they realized they were too far inland. He would have to maneuver slowly, and so far the fish was still strong enough to fight back. It could literally jump off the line at any second, but he had managed to pull it in far enough that he could see it splashing about in the shallow water. Taking a hint from Faval's form earlier, and perhaps getting impatient, he wound up and jerked on the line, pulling and sending the fish flying on land!

Seluj abandoned the pole and ran to the fish, grabbing it in both hands. He didn't want to ruin Faval's focus, but turned around just to notice that he had managed to spawn a fire, "Check it our Faval! I got another fish! It's a whopper!" But it wasn't... in fact it was about an inch smaller than the one Faval had plucked from the water earlier. All and all it was a successful morning. It bode well for the rest of the day.

[Faval]

Faval was not especially fond of being ignored…at all. He spent his entire life trying to be ignored for the purposes of safety and now that he no longer needed to be overlooked at every single opportunity, he tended to get quite offended when he was. He was deep in concentration for the most part while he was inexpertly trying to start a fire, which in his mind was quite expertly done mind you, and did not noticed that the sticks he threw to the man were left entirely unsharpened unlike he had requested. Faval’s brow furrowed at the untouched sticks in the sand as he was about to give the man a stern talking to about proper etiquette that should be followed when people throw sticks at you, but before he could enunciate his disdain, the boy was quickly distracted by a splash and a small object flying through his periphery. The small object was quickly followed by a big object as Seluj seemed to pounce on the fish flailing in the sand. Faval turned to him in time to hear his excited exclamation at the second catch of the day, to which Faval completely forgot that he was still mad at him for ignoring his sticks.

Jumping up excitedly in response to his words, the boy ran over to the sandy impression that now housed the sticks he threw before dragging them back to the now sustained fire. For now he would let Seluj handle preparing the fish to be cooked, which in essence meant killing it as he put off asking what the hell a whopper was for a later time as well. It sounded like some kind of bug to be perfectly honest. Probably one that jumps, yeah that made sense to Faval, a bug that jumped. Maybe he was letting him know that the one Faval caught was bigger, which it was. That’d learn him to not ignore sticks that Faval throws at him that it will.

“Bring it over here so I can get started then!”

Faval picked up one of the pair of sticks at his feet and positioned the left half, about a sixth of the way down its length, in the sand at about a forty five degree angle before violently kicking his foot down on the spot rooted in the sand. A loud snap emanated throughout the beach as the boy effectively brought the stick to a point. Setting the first one down to his side, Faval repeated the process with its sibling, unfortunately creating two sticks of unequal size but two pointy ones all the same. Dropping the sticks on the ground, the boy retrieved the first fish they wrangled in before reaching behind his back and retrieving one of his arrows. With a sense of determined precision, Faval swung the arrow tip violently down at the first and pierced its scaly body. Next, Faval took the shorter of the two and slid the first fish on to the piece of wood, the sharpened stick entering and enlarging the hole the arrow had just gouged. Faval, after having run over to the beach to find two pairs of rocks, positioned the stick over the fire while keeping it in place with the rocks, a trick he had learned from the man’s fishing pole. This kept the fish right above the fire and let the heat get to it. Once Faval was satisfied that the fish would be sufficiently still and cooked, the boy turned his head expectantly back to Seluj, waiting for the other fish.

[Seluj]

Instead of taking out his hunting knife and cutting it up properly, he decided the best way to go about it was just to just hack the things head off with his short sword in one swoop! It would work, but he would have to put it on the sand in order to cut its head, after all who wants to eat fish head. Besides the fins that could be removed and the numerous bones that one would just have to naw around, it was completely edible! Or at least he hoped so. He hadn't come across any weird sorts of fish that had made him sick in the past! In any case, he would take his headless, sandy fish back to the water so as to wash it off in the salt water of the ocean. He could handle his fish being salty, but sandy? Forget about it! He walked back over to Faval and presented the second fish. And presented it to him by the tail. "Do you magic sir!" He said as he didn't exactly know how to go about it himself. As soon as Faval took the fish he would look over his shoulder to realize that his fishing pole had been all but abandoned.

Assuming that the roast would take a second or two, he would head over to his pole and return it to the place where he had originally set it up. He would cast it out once more in the same way he had before. If he had the luck he had up until this point he wouldn't stop now! Not while he was ahead. It was like Kevin Durant stopping shooting after he had made the last five shots; he's gonna take the next shot! (ThunderUp!) One the bait was hooked, the hooked was cast, the pole was planted, and the fishing operation as a whole was back in swing, he returned back to Faval, taking a place next to the fire and next to his new found friend. "So Faval, are you from around here? I don't think I've ever seen you, though I do spend most of my time in the Taverns... SAY! You should come party with me some time! They get pretty rowdy!" He said with a broad smile and a friendly look. He figured he would make small talk with the individual he was sharing a meal with. Perhaps this chance meeting on an early morning was the beginning of some sort of friendship!

What Seluj was starting to realize was that between the people that he would meet, none of them were by any standards 'normal'. The world was shifting and it's people were all caught up in the dynamic in their own way. Especially considering the fact that many of the inhabitants of the world weren't even human in the first place. When it came to people in general, he felt as though he somehow didn't know a thing. He considered himself pretty normal, though he would be naive if even he didn't challenge this notion. This 'Faval' guy was far from the norm, in fact he was kind of a weirdo, but not in a bad way exactly. He thought at first that those weird things would repulse him, but the more people he met that had their own quirky edges and angles, the more curious he became as to what made them that way. What about their Djed was different, and what was the same. If only he could come to understand them...

[Faval]

Faval, without hesitation, took the now headless fish from his new acquaintances hand and quickly went to work at mounting it on the remaining stick, repeating the arrow puncturing and the skewering on the pointy stick. The boy used the other pair of rocks to brace the longer stick in the sand, once more repeating the previous process as his precariously balanced fish skewer hovered above the miraculously sustaining flame. Considering how things had been going as of late and the boy’s general luck with anything involving fire, it most likely wasn’t going to last much longer, but that was no reason not to revel in the fact that they actually had a sustained flame for more than a few minutes! Faval grabbed one of the smaller branches that Seluj had brought over and slowly prodded at the fire. He didn’t know why of course, it seemed kind of silly. He knew if he was a fire and someone randomly started poking him with a stick, he might stop putting out just out of spite. They’d see who froze to death then. Maybe it liked the attention though, that might be the case. Perhaps being poked by wood was exciting for it.

Faval’s thoughts were broken as Seluj returned after once more situating his fishing pole. The boy looked up at him with a smile, proud of his work, as the man took a seat around the fire. Ignoring the reference that meant nothing to him, but sounded like an incredibly boring sport that only merited being watched for the final two minutes, by the way Evgeni Malkin won the Hart Trophy, Faval went back to gently prodding the fire while he listened to Seluj invite him to something that he had never been to before. The first sixteen years of Faval’s life were spent struggling to just go to bed hungry, so he had no opportunity to enjoy something so frivolous as a party and the next three years involved himself dedicating himself mind, body, and soul to his military training just so his mind would not dwell on the previous sixteen years. Consequently, he had heard people use the word party before, but he had no idea what it was or what one would do while at a party. It had the word part in it; did they break things at parties? Is that what the word meant, to pull things apart? The deliberation in to the great question of what a party was something he was not going to solve on his own and he was again finding himself indescribably angry and ashamed of himself for just not knowing what things were. The boy’s eyes dropped and the stick in his hand was aimlessly dancing through the flames as he tried his best to chase away his own personal demons. His other hand gripped the middle of his bow tightly as the boy’s eyes trailed to the already maimed tree. Shooting his bow was mainly how he dealt with stress since he discovered archery and right now, the shame was causing a lot of stress. His embarrassment not at all well hidden, the boy’s eyes left the flame and the sand beneath him and arched over to Seluj, his voice soft as he spoke.

“What…what is a party?”

[Seluj]

"What is a party? WHAT IS A PARTY!? Boy what were you, raised by wolves or something?" He said out loud in an uproar. Everyone knew what a party was. It was a simple word and even someone half his age had the word 'party' somewhere in the accessible vocabulary. "You're joking with me right? You've got to be! You almost had me for a second!" He said, shaking his head and laughing. It wasn't that he was in disbelief, it just seemed as though he was being sarcastic. But as the words slipped through his lips he slowly started to piece together this guys character, or at least whatever clues he was given. He apparently didn't know what a party was... All he carried was a bow and arrow, didn't have personal space awareness... When he did speak it was very short, and quite expressive.

Maybe he had just lived in the wood or something, or at least grown up completely unsocialized. Ohh well, he would soon out sooner or later. He hadn't answered any of his questions as to where he was from, though while waiting for the fish to cook there wasn't much more to do then converse and wait.

[Faval]

As the man laughed, Faval’s eyes returned to the ground, even more downtrodden then before. He was being laughed at again, it made sense he supposed. Parties must be one of those things that everyone but him knew about. There were unfortunately far too many of those and it was quite obvious from Faval’s less than happy face that he hated it with an incredibly intense passion. Faval gave the fire another good poke, probably harder than he should have as the kindling shifted enough to threaten the stability of the fire for a moment, causing Faval to jump slightly before settling it down. Once the minor scare had passed, the boy spoke, once again softly and with a hint of depressed sadness to his words, a sharp contrast to the overly excited youth that Seluj had originally met, his eyes hidden by his downtrodden brow.

“Homeless children don’t have parties…so I have no idea what they are except that people spoke fondly of them before they went to one and spoke less so when they returned. One of the other soldiers said he had a hangover or something…do you guys climb and hang from things at parties? Taverns don’t seem big enough for something like that…”

Faval knew he was asking a “stupid” question, he was familiar with asking them at this point and he could sense the hesitation in the air that usually followed queries such as his. People, like Seluj, always assumed he was making some lame joke. It didn’t dawn on them until later when they noticed that Faval wasn’t remotely close to laughing that he was being very serious and then what followed was even worse, pity. Very few things in this world were more embarrassing and shameful to Faval than to receive pity from people because he was “stupid.” Just thinking about it caused the boys teeth to grit in anger. The boy’s fists balled in anger as his thoughts spiraled while he waited for Seluj’s, probably mocking, response. People had always made fun of him for his less than expansive base of knowledge and he wasn’t expecting much different from Seluj, despite the kindness he had showed thus far, but as his thoughts went to darker and darker places, they began to seep in to his other thoughts as well. Did he lie to him earlier? Was he really a magic man? Faval was smart enough to piece together that magic people would want to hide considering all the stories about them. Is that what he did, lie to protect himself? No, Faval shouldn’t be suspicious like that, it wasn’t right. He shouldn’t assume people were lying or kidding or anything of the sort unless they told him otherwise, even if Seluj had laughed at him. He should still be as trusting as possible, that’s what the old man who let him steal his food had taught him that dinner. The thought was still eating at him though and it probably would for awhile as Faval’s head and eyes lifted slightly to look at Seluj, awaiting the answer to what kind of climbing they could do in a tavern.

[Seluj]

"You actually don't know do you? Ohh well. I guess it can't be helped! You'll just have to come and experience a party for yourself! Get lucky and you might even have a place to stay." He said out loud, smiling to himself and shaking his head lightly. What kind of person didn't know what a 'party' was. He wasn't a child by his appearance, and even most ten year olds had the word party somewhere in their vocabulary. Maybe this guy actually was raised by wolves or something. He did say he was homeless, but then again so was Seluj. Take that back, he wasn't homeless at all. As far as he was concerned, all of Zeltiva was his home! There wasn't a single surface he couldn't make into a bed and and a single overhang that couldn't be shelter. He had lived his way for half of his life, and he had never really considered himself homeless, he just did what he had to to get by and survive. It wasn't at all that he was lazy, he just never seemed as though he had to do more than just that. As things came, he was relatively happy, and so he never considered himself a victim. The majority of his memories from his childhood were too fuzzy for him to have anything to attach to. Maybe it was just his personality, but he was both lucky and blessed to have the ability to let the past just be the past!

"So what about this fish ehh? How long does it take to cook! I wanna get it right on the first pull. Eating burnt fish is an ill omen you know?" He said, gesturing at the roasting meat. All this work and such had in fact made him quite hungry. The use of flux he had all but recovered from, though he could feel the soreness in his muscles already settling in. Little did he know, but it sped up his metabolism as well! A good meal would be just what he needed and fish was actually pretty healthy as meats come... as long as they weren't raw or filled with parasites... But who worries about parasites! Natures weight control if you ask me! It's a diet where you really can eat all you like!

What a ridiculous though...