The Red-Headed Foreigner
2nd day of Summer, 513 A.V.
2nd day of Summer, 513 A.V.
“Are you going to meet that Inarta again?” Vallora asked lazily. She tried to hide the curiosity in her voice, but she doubted Xaven missed it. She looked up at him as she sat cross-legged on her bed, trying to seem uninterested as she braided her hair.
“She’s mostly a Vantha, Valle,” he said with a faint smile. He was already set. He tidied up nicely, though his short brown hair was still a mess. Seems fitting that he attracted a foreigner instead of a Drykas. Braids were supposed to show an individual’s status and Xaven’s preference to keep his hair short was far too disturbing than anyone wanted to admit. Only slaves wore their hair short. Even though she had mentioned it to him, Xaven simply brushed her concern away, noting that he had no interest in following the norms of the people who exiled their family.
The two twins had reacted to their pavilion’s exile into two different attitudes. Vallora had turned into a reserved, timid girl in front of people she did not know. Xaven became angry at the horse-clan. Actually both were angry, Vallora simply hid it better. Xaven hid his fury well in front of the other Drykas, but he would tell her what he really felt.
“You’ve been seeing her for nearly a season,” Vallora stated, “and you’ve never introduced her to me. Not once.” “She’s not miraculously ugly, I hope,” she teased lightly.
Xaven chuckled and ran his fingers through his hair in a self-conscious gesture. “Of course not. You want to meet her? Alright then. Dress up.”
Grinning with satisfaction, Vallora leaped off her bed and grabbed her clothes before slipping between the canvas that separated their tent into rooms. As she changed, she could hear her brother pacing outside, nervously. She never understood why he was always anxious to meet this girl of his – even if he already done it countless times. When she was done, Vallora dashed outside, her hair in a messy, simple braid.
“How do I look?” he asked her all of the sudden.
Vallora grinned and patted her twin’s arm. “You look dashing, Xaven. Uncharacteristically so.” He stood tall and straight, looking a bit self-conscious. Fidgety, in fact. Which was quite uncharacteristic as well. As most Drykas men were, he was bare-chested, showing his sculpted torso and his Windmarks, the thick curving strokes decorated the left side of his upper body. "But really, don't get cocky."
He simply smirked in reply and gestured for to start walking. It was a bright summer day and nearly everyone was out of their tent, enjoying the bask under Syna’s light. Merchants were trying to sold their wares, calling out to the citizens. As she pushed through the throng of crowd, Vallora could hear snatches of conversations - the retreating illnesses, some love triangle in the Emerald Clan, thievery happening across the city, a couple of people disappearing as they journeyed through the Sea of Grass. Those were the usual chatters. There were darker topics such as the state of the Drykas after the pox had taken away so many lives and that the leaders were arguing over what they should do. Words about raiding the merchants and capturing foreigners in order to boost their numbers were not unheard of. No one really thought about it – they chose not to.
“Xavie?” she called out to him all of the sudden. This thought had been bothering her for a long time, but she had never really spent the time to think about it. She rather not to. Still, Vallora knew she could not escape it. Recently, the topic had been brought out by nearly everyone.
Her brother turned to look at her with questioning eyes.
It was a rather straight-forward question – blunt, if not. But it was her brother and she knew he would not mind. “Are you going to marry her?”
Immediately, his face changed for a fracture of a second. It was a face of someone who thought much about the topic but did not really like the choices that were laid out. “Why you’d ask that?”
“You know why.”
Sometimes it was easy for her to forget that they had the same age. He just seemed so mature sometimes, but right now, he looked like the hesitant adolescent he was. His jaw was tightened in a lock as he thought about her words. “I don’t know, truly. To be honest, I rather not think about it.”
“You know you’ll have to think about it sooner rather than later. It is already summer, brother. The elders would push you to marry soon, just as they had with the others,” she reminded him gently. “Does she know?”
He nodded once, the gesture almost imperceptible. “She does. She’s been here long enough. We’ve never talked about it but I’m sure she knew that I was thinking about it.” His gaze flickered away, like he was distracted but his words were still firm. “I don’t want to push her, you know. I can’t. We’ve known each other for less than a season and she had everyone around her talking about marriages. I fear she would simply leave me because of it.” The tone of his words shifted to a shimmering anger. It was not surprising, really, Xaven rarely talked about the Drykas without getting furious at something. “They only reason they let us back in Endrykas is that so they could use us to produce some heir. They kicked us out and now they forced us to marry even if we were not ready.”
As angry as his logic may sound, Vallora agreed with her brother on that. The people of the Drykas could no longer afford losing more people, especially two young individuals available for marriage like her and Xaven. They might be wrong, but who's to say they were? She did not say it out loud, though, knowing that it would only fuel her twin's useless anger. Before she could soothe him, Xaven had changed the subject, “How about you, sister? Are you ready to be married if it comes down to it?”
