Closed Grief That Is Not Woe

[Khida]

Summer 78, 513 AV evening The weight of the robe, the snug constriction of a belt at her waist, the way its folds brushed against her legs with each step -- it just plain felt strange, after so many seasons in feathers, only occasionally wearing bare human skin. The sensations nagged at the edge of Khida's mind as might the buzzing of a fly, conspicuously persistent yet for all the annoyance caused, essentially insignificant. But as she plucked at the fabric, tweaking its drape over her shoulders, Khida rather welcomed the distraction -- it kept her, however briefly, from the more uncomfortable musings which had come to shadow her mind of late. "I think it's that one there. The child tugged at her hand and pointed with his other one, as he had done often since attaching himself to the Kelvic's side. Then his pointing hand folded into a gesture, one kin to confusion yet one whose meaning she didn't quite recognize. "But I'm not really sure; it's all... broken." Khida wasn't quite sure how he'd wound up with her, and she eyed the top of his head bemusedly. She held herself aloof from the child, except for where he clung to her hand; she had no idea what to do with him, and was vaguely uncomfortable for it. But he had posed her a simple problem, after some mutual wrangling with the language barrier, and persisted until the Kelvic gave in and let him direct her along. She couldn't make the city whole again, a fact the Kelvic accepted so pragmatically it was barely more than a vague and indistinct regret. What stung rather more was her failure at defending it, the falcon's talons seeming barely a nuisance to the bat-beasts. But surely it was not beyond her to find one lost dog amongst the wreckage... something she could accomplish, however small and insignificant a task. Though even Khida knew the dog was unlikely to be found alive. Where a human would have reassured the boy, offered sympathy and encouragement, patted him on the head or hugged him close (or both), the Kelvic did none of these things. She only nodded, refrained from shaking off his too-clingy hand -- experience said he'd only grab hers back again -- and let him lead the way on.

[Colt]

“Perhaps you should consider getting a goat of your own, since you seem to need so much,” the goatherd suggested, eyes not quite sparkling with detached amusement.

Shahar corked the two wineskins of milk. The kittens that had come to share his hearth were needy little things, each well able to consume almost their own weight in milk per day. Their first days had been hard; without a mother and with a guardian that knew nothing of taking care of baby cats, they had grown thinner and thinner on half-chewed trail rations until he’d had the idea to purchase milk for them. Three of them were slowly changing for the better, while one continued to waste away. He was concerned about that one, the one who had difficulty eating and hardly ever moved. Maybe mixing blood with the milk would help.

He paid for the milk with a thanks, tucked the skins onto his belt and slipped back into the tattered thick of Endrykas. Tents were harrowed and shredded, some so mangled that they could barely be called tents anymore. The people within them didn’t look much better; hollow-eyed, dull-voiced, lethargic—the trauma of the siege had bit hard and bit deep in everyone. To recover, if they could at all, would take time.

He didn’t know what moved his feet from their intended path. He’d about half the city to go through yet, and it wasn’t drastically out of his way; it was just a strange, unplanned detour. Before the destruction, he would have found it worrying. Now, however… now, he just didn’t care enough to change it.

He found himself in one of the ghost districts. Gutted tents looked like weathered skeletons, the people like scavenging hyenas. Some had walls torn out, others were only half upright, and still others were little more than piles of wood and canvas in the dirt. It was here that he caught sight of them.

Curiosity rose in him suddenly at the sight of Khida so firmly attached to the little boy, and he stopped to watch. The boy tugged at the she-falcon, unaware of her detachment. They seemed to be looking for something in the wreckages, though Shahar had no idea as to what. Perhaps he’d be able to help?

The Drykas slid from the empty pathway he’d been traveling, greeting on his hands.

[Khida]

She felt his approach rather than seeing it, the sense of presence drawing nearer, preoccupation breaking and reforming as curiosity. Khida turned towards him, grateful beyond words for company who could surely deal with the small child so determinedly attached to her side. She didn't have the Pavi to tell him it won't leave me alone, but her demeanor said that much for her, as transparent as could be. The boy felt the shift in her posture, and leaned out to look past the woman at the new arrival. "Hello," he greeted in word and sign, with the sublime self-assurance of the innocent. The man was here, he was not Zith; he was Drykas, and Drykas would help. "Do you know the Leafstride Pavilion?" he asked hopefully, rattling off the Pavi query as only a native could. By the headband the boy wore, it was a pavilion of the Amethyst clan. "She doesn't. I think it was here... but everything's different now." With the boy's attention redirected, Khida tried to slip her fingers free; she wanted to start looking, do what they'd come here for, rather than stand here aimlessly talking. But when he felt her grip loosen, his tightened, tugging insistently at her hand; he didn't want to let go. Her gaze flicked to her bondmate; dog, she signed, then paused for a moment to think. She followed with a tentative gesture she hoped meant find, or maybe look for... but it could have been something else entirely, or completely meaningless. She couldn't seem to pin down the correct shape just now. "I can look," she said, shifting her attention to the boy's upturned face, "but you have to let go." Not sure if the boy's Common was any better than her Pavi, Khida pointed at their persistently joined hands, then towards the nearest pavilion, a slumped hulk which held only the vaguest resemblance to its former high-peaked shape, its once-protected contents a chaotic shambles. Then she pulled again... and this time, however reluctantly, he let her hand slip free.

[Colt]

He couldn’t help the small twinge of amusement at Khida’s new parasite, though he refrained from an explicit pity. The boychild greeted him, and he combed his memory for any recollection of the pavilion he spoke of. No, he said eventually, sincerest apologies.

Dog, Khida signed, and Shahar tilted his head. She followed with a sign that was a combination of many different ones, most with the connotation of searching. They were searching for a dog, did she mean? Search, he signed to her, accompanying it with the common words “Look for?”

But they were in the Amethyst district, or at least what was left of it, and if the boy’s colors were anything to go by then they must have been somewhere near the pavilion they sought.

Khida turned her attention to the leech, and after some words she succeeded in extricating her hand. Shahar continued to question the boy. Your pavilion, he said, “what do they do for work?” Perhaps being aware of their profession would shed some light on how near to the borders they might have been.

[Khida]

The boy visibly perked up as the new arrival proved his fluency in Pavi; rather than gaze mournfully in Khida's wake, he hopped over to the man's side and reached insistently for his hand instead. "We raise horses," he declared. "The big Semes. Most are brown. My favorite one has a splotch on her shoulder; Father said she was born the same year as me." He paused, then continued wistfully, "I hope she's okay..." While the boy chattered with his new best friend, Khida looked to the hunter and noted the word he provided; she nodded to confirm that look for, search, was indeed what she'd meant to convey. The conversation in Pavi -- which is to say, the boy's glib patter -- blew past her, too many unfamiliar words in too short a space. He thought their pavilion had been here, and without further direction it was as good a place to look as any. The Kelvic woman stepped carefully among the debris, mindful of the way her feet tended to slip in the just-overlarge sandals at inopportune moments. Head ducked, shoulders bowed, she studied the ground not only for obstacles to her progress but for shapes which might belong to a dead dog. Any shadowed, dog-sized forms lying motionless, any lumps under canvas... those were what she needed to find. But she didn't; what she found instead was a single blurred footprint, half of a blunt-clawed paw in crumbling soil. Crouching down, Khida set her fingers to the earth beside it; it seemed the right size for a dog's, so far as she knew. She looked for others, but found none -- just that one, which seemed to be aimed into the less-trampled grasses beyond. Still crouched, Khida glanced back towards boy and hunter, her manner radiating query -- were they in the right place? Should they follow where this print seemed to lead, if indeed it did lead anywhere at all?

[Colt]

Shahar backpedaled in alarm when the child bounded for him, but it was too late; in a heartbeat his hand had been ensnared, and the boy had now become his leech. The Drykas looked at his trapped fingers in dismay, but the boy didn’t seem to notice—he continued on with his chatter, and while most of it went into one ear and out the other, the hunter did take care over the statement of the boy’s family’s profession. Hm. Horse-rearers would most likely be close to the outer fringes, where there was more space for their stock to grow. Uncomfortably, Shahar turned to walk farther towards the edge of the city. The boy trotted after him cheerfully, and the hunter hoped that finding the lost beast would spell his hand’s freedom.

Khida had taken interest in something on the ground and was looking at the both of them through eyes bright with inquiry. Shahar pulled the boy after him and crouched by whatever had so interested his bondmate. A single pawprint lay in the dirt, clear as the sun above them. It was too narrow to be a coyote or a hyena, so it must have been a dog. Maybe, just maybe it was the dog they were looking for. He followed the print's direction, catching sight of a disturbance in the dust just deep enough to mark the passage of a dog-sized creature. It seemed to have been headed farther out, towards the wild places where the tents were more sparse. Shahar couldn’t help the unease that settled in his gut; he didn’t want to venture out anytime soon if he could help it. But if the dog was out there, were a few minutes of discomfort such a large price to pay for freedom of limb?

He sighed and gestured to Khida, pointing farther out to where the trail had led. It seemed they would be venturing away.

[Khida]

Faced with a deficit of response from his companion, the boy fell quiet. It was a musing quiet, rather than an offended one, and he looked between the hunter and the Kelvic with bright curiosity. "She's not Drykas, is she?" He craned his head around to peer up at the man's profile, but wasn't on the right side to see what he was looking for. "Are you married?" he asked, tactless in his eagerness to make friends. "My cousin's supposed to get married. He went out with the others to find a wife. Mother said they'd be home soon. Do you think the Zith attacked them too?" Khida disregarded the talk entirely, her gaze following the hunter's point outwards. She didn't see what cued him forward, but accepted the direction just the same -- out she walked, picking her way around another tattered pavilion's support-ropes, glancing once over her shoulder as she felt the frisson of her bondmate's unease. The Kelvic didn't share it; the grass was the grass, and the sky was clear. So long as the bat-beasts did not return... which admittedly, they could do; dusk approached, and night behind it. She shook her head, vibration which echoed into her shoulders; she wouldn't dwell on that now. For now, the Kelvic walked out blindly, following nothing but a pointer given some distance back -- -- until sound gave her something else to orient on. The buzzing drone of carrion-flies, as familiar as the meat which drew them, came to her ears; Khida stopped and turned towards it. In that direction lay grass and a clump of brush too small to bother the Drykas, too thick to easy remove with anything but fire. There was some narrow space in the low branches, a darkness with more shape than shadow, broken twigs suggesting something had pushed its way underneath. Did something move in that shadow? Khida thought... it might have... This, she signed, quick yet hesitant. Catching her sign, the boy perked up, squeezing the hunter's hand with apprehension and anticipation. But at the moment of truth, he hung back -- worried, now, of what he might find...

[Colt]

Are you married? That was the only one of the child’s phrases that stuck with him. Are you married?

No, he didn’t say. But I should be.

The three of them continued after the trail quietly, each wrapped up in their own thoughts. He should be married. After so long, that single thought resurfaced from where he had buried it. Before, the knowledge had held apprehension, but now… like so many things, now there was nothing. It was an entirely human concept, marriage, and one he’d given little thought to before the verdict at the beginning of summer: all eligible men must marry.

And this, the tattered tents, the tang of blood, the shadow of destruction… this was why. To marry… to bring new life to take the place of the old. For little ones, many little ones, to ally with another to rebuild that which had been thrice broken. It was the animal part of him that had shied from the thought of such an alliance, but here, now, it was the Drykas part of him that bid the animal to be silent. There was no longer apprehension, but neither was their hope. The need to marry was the same as the need to move every fortnight, to tie up the tents and to follow the Run. It was the same at the need to put the yvas to Akaidras’ back and to trade his kills for trinkets and gold-rimmed stones. An immovable fact, one that he didn’t need to justify in order to do.

Khida stopped short of the thick grass, turning to throw a cautious this. The little one tensed, gripping even more tightly to Shahar’s hand. Cautiously, the hunter turned to the boy. Stay here.

The child cooperated, for now, at least, and allowed the Drykas’ hand to leave his. Shahar, too, could hear the sound of death, and he moved forward cautiously. The thicket that they had come to was small and tight, forcing him to crouch in an attempt to peer through the shade. The death-flies buzzed forcefully over something, and it was something he sincerely hoped wasn’t their quarry.

[Khida]

The hunter stepped forward after her sign, freeing himself from the boy's grip, which implied to Khida that this was the right pavilion, the right general vicinity. She let him check under the bushes, because he by action volunteered himself to do so; the Kelvic didn't mind either way. In the meantime, she glanced again towards the boy -- too late to realize he was creeping over to her side before it happened. It was a surprise to find him abruptly there, though it shouldn't have been, given his prior behavior. He didn't quite reach for her hand this time, though even Khida could read the impulse in his posture; she didn't understand why not, but she could appreciate it. Standing together, they looked on -- one apprehensive, the other merely alert. In the shelter of the thicket, the dark lump resolved into something with brownish fur... perhaps even more than one something, for the contours didn't seem quite to mesh into a singular creature. But only one lifted its head just so, flicking a folded-over ear to scare off a buzzing fly. Only one whine issued from within the shadow at the arrival of a human. There was a muted whap, as of a tail quickly foiled in its wagging by stick or stone, and then the tail's owner began gamely dragging itself towards him. Dragging as much because of the low clearance as anything -- but if allowed to extricate itself unaided, or if examined, it would be clear the dog was somewhat the worse for wear. It very distinctly favored one paw, bore several gashes on its head and shoulders, had an eye swollen nearly closed... but licked affectionately at Shahar where it could, and altogether seemed to retain an amiable and good-natured attitude despite its hardships. A few flies followed it out curiously, drawn to the dried blood matted in the dog's brown fur -- but the greater part of their number remained behind, with the smaller shape lying still on the ground.

[Colt]

Shahar was greeted by a soft whine, followed by the rattling of the brush as it was disturbed. The hunter let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding as the dog heaved itself from its shelter, even licking his hand when it was near enough. Shahar gave the creature a gentle pat on the jaw and moved to lift the stray branches, giving the canine an easier passage. It was injured, that much was obvious, but it seemed strong in spite of its weakened state.

Calm, he said. Safe. Alright. Come out.

The dog stepped gingerly into the open, tail wagging weakly. Shahar put a hand on its haunches, where there were no wounds, and turned to look at the boy. This one? The dog’s ears perked and it focused on the little Drykas, barking once and making its way towards him. Shahar watched for a few moments, but soon turned back to the bush; though a few flies had followed the dog, there remained a dull drone inside the thicket. There was something else there.

oocApologies for the short post; couldn’t think of a great deal to do here.