Watchful Eyes [Khida]

[Naiya]

oocI will put her signing in italics, because I can't actually change the color of my text

Rue

Scent, there was a common word for that. "Smell? He can smell if hunter animal coming, or if other Drykas come, everything has a smell." She signed scent again, as she spoke smell, hoping that her common comparison was close enough for her to understand. Her second sign was more difficult to answer, how did you explain human to someone?

"Drykas human, traders from other cities human." It was entirely inadequate as an explanation, but it was never something she had considered in depth before. Just that she was human with the other Drykas. "You smell like human like other Drykas, but you bird too. Wildfire not know how to tell me, he say familiar like Drykas, but that not-" She had come to a common word she couldn't remember, a result of having taken too long without speaking the language, so she signed the next word instead correct.

The other's hands fluttered before her moving in a way that conveyed a sort of broad confusion, maybe more of an idle sense of the strangeness of their situation. It was intriguing that a woman who obviously spoke common would have such a sense of the unspoken sign. You sign very well. Do you not speak in Pavi as well?

Nightsong

[Khida]

Khida sat quietly through the explanations of concepts, her hands gone still, her attention intent upon her companion, gleaning what she'd really wanted -- the Common-language equivalents -- from what the girl said. Curiously, she didn't seem to have the Common word for human. Khida recognized, then, that the girl's explanation had a hole in the middle -- a hole where human connected to bird. The one so many Drykas seemed to share. She shook her head a bit. "No, I am not human. Or Drykas. I'm Kelvic." If that was even a meaningful word to the other. The girl's hands flickered, decisive and significant, shaping meaning Khida partially understood. Sign, good, not... not speaking? The Kelvic tipped her head as she considered that query -- she had never thought to compare how well she spoke with well how she signed. But they spoke aloud so little, as little as he could get away with, that it only made sense her skill was mismatched. Sign more, Khida answered in kind, not quite sure of the first gesture, confident in the second. Speak? she added, fingers hesitant with her uncertain memory of that sign's shape, speak not more. The strider -- Wildfire -- moved into the edge of Khida's vision, distracting her from the girl. She regarded the horse, who regarded her back briefly, then went back to grazing. The horse that needed to be made to run. Idly, her hands plucked at the air as if to draw more signs from it, signs she did not yet know. "You... exercise the horse," Khida finally asked in Common, because she could not ask in Pavi, spoken or signed. "What else does the horse need? I know they are brushed, and the feet cleaned."

[Naiya]

Rue

"Keelvec. Keelvic." She tested the new word. Sounding strange awkward in her voice. "Is meaning you are bird too? Keelvic?" She pondered that for a moment, her hands hesitant in their signing winged human, bird-woman, flyer puzzling through what name to sign as Kelvic. Her hands froze a moment, as she realized she had another question for the strange woman who was not human but not only a bird either. "What is like, flying?"

The other's hands moved in response to her words, and Rue nodded in response, signing speak once more as the other woman did as well, correcting the halting movement. not more, also 'less'. Speak less. She corrected the woman almost without thinking, just as she would a child still learning the language. "Is good, practice speaking." She accompanied the common with the sign, but the gaze of the bird-woman had shifted, leaving Rue and presumably missing the sign. She spoke in common then, that Rue knew most of, but one of the words she did not understand.

"Yes, horse need exercise, he does not more alone. Clean whole horse, not only feet, but this I do not know; This word bru-sh, yes? She signed a question to the word, but continued to speak. "Need food, water, place live." There is much more, horse needs all that people need. "Also, train? Horse need train. Learn listen to Drykas, no, learn listen to Rue." She gestured to herself as she said her name, not wanting to confuse the idea of who he would listen to.

Nightsong

[Khida]

Less, Khida echoed, accepting the correction. Her hands moved on, a change of subject, a correction of her own. Bird. Bird. Firm and resolute in that single statement, countering the sketched mashing of signs the girl had made, elements of person and flying; the Kelvic wasn't that at all. She was a falcon, who happened to sometimes be human on the outside. "Not all birds," she said aloud, answering that first question in full. "My sire was a jackal. Kelvics can be many different kinds -- but a Kelvic can only be one creature." She herself could become neither jackal nor osprey, despite her parents' forms. The girl went on to ask a much more difficult question, one which made Khida blink and regard her with bafflement. As well ask what it was like to run, or breathe... "It's flying," she answered, shoulders twitching in a slight shrug. It wasn't like anything else, it just was what one did with wings. Like riding was what one did with horses. "What is it like, riding?" she countered, as something the Drykas girl might relate to, which was also essentially foreign to Khida herself. The girl's incomprehension of brush was much easier to alleviate; Khida knew the Pavi for that one, as she knew so few others. "Brush," she supplied, holding her hand up in a loose fist and moving it down, as might be done over a horse's flank. Food, water, shelter; that went without saying. All things needed that. Training... "Striders need training?" the Kelvic echoed, head canting quizzically. Sacred, special, family, human-but-horse-shaped... and they needed training? "What do you train them to do?"

[Naiya]

Rue

Rue's head cocked tot he side, a sort of furrow forming on her brow. "Kelvic is animal person, one animal is only. You bird, others no bird, can be other animal." It was a confusing topic for Rue, these humans who were animals too, but not human at all. Kelvic.

"You don't ride?" She took a moment to ponder that before it clicked, "Don't need ride when you have flying, huh. Riding is like run fast as can, but smooth like swim in water. Is free from pull of all days. Just you and horse, happy mind." That only made so much sense to her, and she had to think it made less sense to the woman, but it was the best she could do.

When the woman offered her the word, Rue nodded happily, brush of course, and she repeated the common word, "Brush? moving her hand to mimic the brushing motion of the other woman, asking without words whether she had the right Common word for the Pavi one. "Rue train Wildfire to know Pavi words, also to move way ask, is different than few Drykas. Move away push, not to push. Also, teach how watch for danger, and how tell Rue for danger."

She paused for a moment, wondering if there were other things that other Drykas taught their striders. "I can show?" She signed the question in her words as well, her hands often still as she worked through her knowledge of common.

Nightsong

[Khida]

"Brush," Khida affirmed, nodding to confirm that that was the correct Common word for the tool. Riding like running, riding like swimming. Khida thought about her own experience with both -- not much -- and felt none too enlightened by the analogies. Neither seemed a good relationship for flying, either. It was probably just as well that the girl moved on to the subject of Strider training. Training for words, training to watch. Khida tipped her head as she considered this. She didn't think he had trained his Strider, any more than he had endeavored to train the falcon -- he spoke, she listened; he gestured, she watched; and their partnership had developed naturally, even before the bond. But the Strider had been there even before the Kelvic; perhaps there had been training in that before. She couldn't say for sure. Her gaze blinked back to the girl as she spoke again. Showing the horse's training? Showing riding? Probably the training, she thought. Yes, Khida signed in return. She was interested to see what the horse did.

[Naiya]

Rue

"Wildfire." Rue called to the horse, dragging his attention back to her rather than to the greener grass that was always just a little bit further away. "To me." She signed, and with little more than a sigh Wildfire trotted up to the edge of the water, pushing at her with his head.

She pushed back at him with her hand, laughing at his playfulness. "He does more thing. But see... less? Not easy see. Need know horses to see different." She turned to face him, pressing against his chest until he took a couple steps away. She followed him, stepping out of the water, so that she could push him again. "You try call. To me."

She grinned at the other woman, happy to have something more clear to show her. Sign was a language that all three of them could use to communicate... mostly.

She patted his cheek, smoothing the soft hair there. Her hand came away covered in the soft hairs, reminding Rue that she had a purpose in being all the way out here.

Nightsong

[Khida]

Khida... wasn't really sure what the Drykas girl meant to say, with her remarks about seeing. A difficulty of the language barrier, no doubt. The Kelvic decided it probably wasn't important. The second part was clear enough, after all.

You try call. Humans -- Drykas -- did it all the time with their horses, but now that it fell to Khida to command one, she felt... odd. The kind of odd that came with new things, like flying into the city for the first time, or when she'd first passed out over the plains of Cyphrus from the arid sands of Eyktol. And doing more than moving around horses, or offering a brush for their approval or disdain, was new to the Kelvic. Would the horse heed her?

Well, the girl said he would.

She waited until she knew the horse could see her, until a flick of her hand turned one red ear her way. Wildfire, Khida gestured, roughly echoing the girl's sign. Hopefully he would recognize it anyway. To me.

oocShort, but I didn't want to presume Wildfire's response!

Common | Pavi | someone else

[Naiya]

Rue

Rue could see the change in Wildfire as soon as the woman began signing, his ears turned forward listening and watching, but with a stiffness in his posture that spoke of his wariness. He plodded forward splashing into the water a few steps before stopping with a snort. His watchful gaze turned back to Rue, a large amber eye questioning what he should do.

Rue waved him on, confident that he would be fine, or that he could trample the woman if she turned out to be dangerous. She fell into her own head a moment, wondering if having thoughts on that line was strange, did everyone assess situations in terms of who would come out on top in a fight?

A few more plodding steps found Wildfire in the water up to his chest and then he fell completely beneath the water as the gradual incline became a drop. The short swim brought him to the Kelvic where he called his anger at the water, stomping along the shore for good measure before he settled beside the woman, wariness renewed with proximity.

He huffed towards her, trying to scent her better without getting close enough to touch. When he decided that she hadn't changed, he whinnied loudly and stretched his head towards the woman. Rue came back to the present with all the noise and caught the mischief glinting gold in his eyes.

"Wildfire! Don't-"

But too late. He shook the water from his hair with a gleeful trumpet. Satisfied that he'd told the woman that despite heeding her call, she was not in charge of him.

Nightsong

[Khida]

The Strider stepped into the water, then surged across the pond, a choice of direction Khida had not expected. Whyever would he go through the water, instead of around? But he approached, by whatever means, and that... well, it came as something of a surprise, the girl's assertion aside. Gratifying, but still a surprise.

The Kelvic woman did not move as he approached, except to hold out a hand, her fingers loosely curled in. Wildfire didn't approach close enough to really sniff it, but hung back, a caution in his manner that even Khida could recognize. Then his attitude shifted, the horse giving a loud cry -- and he proceeded to shake water all over the Kelvic.

Khida closed her eyes and ducked her head against the spray, otherwise standing still with her hand still outstretched. Cold water, despite the summer sun; it raised goosebumps all along her skin. She opened an eye and regarded the horse levelly, her hand lowering to wipe a streak of dampness from her arm, rubbing the liquid between her fingers. Not so much water, she thought, that it would soak her feathers in falcon shape. Not so much that the sun would not bake it away in short order.

But this Strider, clearly, was not one she might consider... friendly.

Though he didn't seem to offer threat beyond the mischief already done, either. The horse seemed... satisfied with himself? Assuming she read right the lay of his ears, the prance of his hooves. Because of that, Khida remained where she stood, though poised for flight if flight proved needed -- waiting to see if he really was satisfied with his actions.

Common | Pavi | someone else