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[Taylani]

Taylani took a moment to enjoy the other girls excitement, suddenly feeling completely old and used up. It was not that long ago that someone who was unfortunate enough to get trapped into a conversation about the performance arts would get the same reaction from Taylani herself. Hurrying to keep up with the apparently Drykas girl, Taylani matches her stride, but continued to keep an eye over her shoulder.

Taylani had no idea how important these horses were to Drykas, she knew that they meant something. She just was unsure as to why people seemed so proud of their mounts. But she was never one to judge someone because of their passions, and she just enjoyed being out. Being away, that she could not help but smile. A smile that was a smile, without thought as to what it might be perceived as.

Walking along, she tries to control her thoughts and racing emotions. She did not want to judge this exuberant young girl too harshly, just because she was apart of this culture. She seemed genuinely nice, but then again Taylani might just not have anything she wanted. It might very well be that if Rue thought Taylani could give her something that Rue might just be as much of a harsh controlling person as Fallan seemed. Do anything to get what you want. It was not an attitude that Taylani had much experience with, and she tried hard not to project that bias on every one here. Though it was hard not to, considering it was not just Fallan that supported the buying and selling of sentient beings, it was a culture problem not just one or two.

Not trying to motion while walking, Taylani did try to make some conversation, more to try and pick up more Pavi then anything else. "Are you..." She stops, wondering for a moment if what she was going to ask would be considered rude. But she decides to ask anyway, "Are you Drykas or...." She allows the words to fade, not finishing the sentence.

[Naiya]

It wasn't, Rue realized, an odd question for the other to ask. With recent goings on it wasn't clear who was and who wasn't Drykas, not to outsiders anyway. So Rue answered her kindly rather than taking the words as an insult, remembering fondly a time when similar words had been asked of her father by a girl with a voice like whispers of a faerie.

"I am Drykas." Rue told her in common, hand falling to her hip where her windmarks began. "I look different than a Drykas?" She laughed softly, she knew better than most that her looks were not what most outsiders imagined when they thought of the wild seeming Drykas. "You were bought, at people sale?" It sounded worse that way, but she didn't have better common words for the question, besides the girl had asked first. Rue continued before the other could speak, "I saw. I saw many..." She struggled again with words looking around for something to help her explain. Her eyes lighted upon a stick and she swooped down, lifting it from the dirt, she held it up for the other girl, then cracked it in two. "Broken." The Pavi word followed by a repeat of the motion, then she touched her chest, and spoke another Pavi word accompanied by its sign, "spirits".

"I do not think people sale is good," Rue continued, "but Drykas are," again her sign for broken, "New people maybe show Drykas to be whole again." she demonstrated with her stick, placing the pieces back together and trying to ignore the splintered ends and missing pieces, it was a visual representation too well done for her liking.

She tossed the stick aside, and looked towards her destination again, the pavilions spreading further apart and her own coming into sight. "Wildfire is here." She spoke this time all in Pavi, signing the words to the woman, although she knew the name sign for her strider was lost on the girl. A few more paces brought her to the corral where she slipped between the quickly assembled barrier and was greeted by a large red forehead thrust against her chest.

Wildfire nickered softly to her and she scratched behind his ears, his presence chasing away the chill that had settled over her at the girl's question. She was not yet sold off to some other, and until she was, she would enjoy her home.

[Taylani]

Taylani stops as the other stops, her blue eyes intense as she watches the other. She smiles a little when she asked if she didn't look like Drykas. "I don't know the Drykas." She responds, but waves to her own fair skin and red coloring in her hair. Yet the smile did not mask the slight withdrawal, once the other did declare she was Drykas. Though she liked the girl thus far, the stigma that she was Drykas gave Taylani reason to keep herself distant. At least figuratively if not literally.

She watched the demonstration, her eyes narrowing not at Rue's remark of seeing her bought but at the idea that she was broken. She understood the broken, that was clear and she did mentally latch onto another Pavi word that Rue had given her but she had to make one thing clear. She pointed to herself, "I am not..." with this she shakes her head vigorously indicating denial, no, or refusal, as she says the common words, but she finished with the Pavi word "Broken." Again she shakes her head and repeats "Broken." She places her hand on her hips, but she does try to keep a relatively calm expression on her face so that she doesn't seem too angry, just almost defiant. "Drykas approve of the sell of human flesh...people sale" she continues, moving toward the corral once more, "As long as this goes on. Drykas remains..." and again she switches to Pavi, knowing that if she was going to be trapped here for years possibly she needed to learn the language. "Broken."

She does not enter the pen with the other girl, instead stays a healthy distance back. She tells herself it is not fear of the animals that keeps her back, only a healthy respect for creatures that are ..larger then a rabbit. She does smile as she watches the other with her horse, seeing the way the horse knickers and the way Rue responds.

[Naiya]

oocI'm going to use italics for when she switches languages within a sentence, if this is confusing please let me know.
Rue look up from her horse, turning to move back to the rails and speak to the girl who had not followed her into the space. Taylani was making the effort to speak in Pavi, the least Rue could do was offer her more words. "People." She spoke the Pavi word, gesturing at the both of them, then repeating in common. Then she spoke all in Pavi, slowly attempting to explain each word as she used it, supplementing common words when she had no way of making the meaning clear. "People on the stage are not the people I spoke of." That was overly difficult, she decided, speaking in common once again. "You are correct about Drykas. We are broken, but not what you think."

Behind her Wildfire moved, joining her at the rails as her mood darkened, nibbling lightly at her hair and clothing. "Seasons ago, sickness come to Endrykas. Took many children, many lives. It broke families, leaving many Drykas with out." She ran a hand thought her hair tousling the curls and bumping Wildfire with her shoulder as she did, the movement causing the topmost end of her windmarks to show over her shoulder and neck. "Once someone was sick, there was no could be done, we only watch the future of Endrykas die away." The less than perfect grasp of common left her feeling as though her words were not enough, that she did not speak well enough to give proper respect for those they lost, so she had to switch topics.

At the continued ignoring from Rue, Wildfire instead streached his head out towards Taylani, searching for someone who would favor him with affection. He snorted loudly at Rue to inform her of his annoyance.

"We recovered, some. We did many things to help the city. There were... joinings of man and women?" She did not know the Common words for marriage, but she continued on. "Children were born. Drykas thought we would last." Her tone changed then, not just dark, but angry too. "But last season, creatures come from the sky, killing men, women, children. Many nights they come, breaking Endrykas and it's people not hunting, not searching for food, killing for enjoyment."

"Is too much. Already we done all to help. Drykas were too little. I do not like stealing people or selling people, but I know why old Drykas choose as best path. I know Drykas is not you people, so you not feel same as Drykas do, not understand. But Drykas only do what think is best."

[Taylani]

Taylani rests her hip against the railing, her plainly colored dress showing signs of wear and tear with grass stains at the hem, and a loosening around the seams, but it was still sufficient for modesty and protection from the elements. For now in Taylani's life that would be enough, any amount o protection from anything seemed huge. Without walls there was nothing that kept her from feeling lost and vulnerable, more so then other perhaps thanks to her circumstances.

She listens intently to Rue's story, notes the change in demeanor and while she sympathized with the Drykas' plight, perhaps she might have felt more sympathy and even a little sorrow at the story last season before she ahd been kidnapped. As it was she crosses her arms and leans them on the top most railing, her tall body easily allowing her to use the fencing as a post.

She was almost startled by the strider's outstretched head and neck, though she quickly back peddled away from the fence just a few steps though. Again, she ensures herself its not really fear but not wanting to accidentally hurt the animal even to herself that excuse was flimsy at best.

Yet at the end of Rue's story she was able to divert her attention from the large animal, her blue eyes sweeping over to the other. "I am..sorry for the Drykas." And her eyes cast skyward, almost as if she was looking to see if there were any creatures ready to swoop down again before she continued, her fear turning now to almost a bitter outrage in her face. "But that does not make it ok. For Drykas to break other families to help their own. I had a family, I had a life. Now for my family I might as well have died of disease, or been carried off by some animal." She stops, realizing that she was ranting now, probably much faster then the other girl might be able to understand and she took a great effort into slowing down. "The only difference between me and the Drykas who , who died. Is I am living my torment."

[Naiya]

It was indescribably frustrating to Rue, this constant battle with language. She was trying to help the girl understand, but she kept turning her words in this foreign tongue back on her, not grasping how they were spoken as being just as important as the meanings of the words. Worse yet, there were no signs to clarify, to make seeing the connections easier.

The words of the other flew together too closely, too quickly for Rue to grasp much meaning, only that the girl had turned her words again to herself. The words she spoke when she slowed again, strained and hard as they were only made marginally more sense to Rue.

"You don't understand." Rue never imagined finding herself in a position to defend the very things that had made her so uncomfortable in her own home, yet here she was doing exactly that. "Is not about you, not about me, about all Drykas."

[Taylani]

Shaking her head sadly, the Dancer moves a little away from the fence -and that of the other girl. She looks over the other horses, just noticing that they were not the same as the other horses she had seen in the city. "I understand plenty." She says slowly still, though her eyes are faraway now, rather then focused on Rue or the animals.

Biting her lip, frustration that no one seemed to understand that she as well as all the other captives that were forced into the auction had lives that were in essence ended. Or perhaps they do understand that, and that they just didn't care. "I wonder, if you really think that should be a comfort to me?" Again she is speaking slowly, but with a tone that said she might be speaking more to herself then to the other, though her voice was pitched the same volume as any other time. But when she speaks again she looks directly at the other, with a crooked brow over one blue eye.

"If you ever have the misfortune that I have had. And people force you from your home, force you into chains, force you.." She stops, heat flooding her face in a blush, hesitation and then continues, again still slow and deliberate. "Force you to mate like you might breed this ..animal. Then remember that it isn't about you, or them. But their people." A hard sardonic smile is given before she turns back to the animals. "I am sure you would find it every bit as ..comforting as I."

"I am not Drykas." She says after a long moment to compose herself. "I do not wish to be Drykas, not now not ever. However." This is said with a deep sigh "It seems that I will bear children that will be Drykas. It will be good...good for me to understand...something of you."

[Naiya]

"You would leave us to die." It wasn't a question, had she not just said the same in so many words. She did not want to be Drykas, did not want to learn their ways or become happy among their culture. She made no move to follow the girl as she spoke, instead reaching out for Wildfire. She did not understand how a person could know such things about a people and still refuse to try.

"My father wants sell me. To give to some trader like broken toy in need of fix. Not for people need. Not for save people. For more room in tent for wives's other children." She did not like the look the girl gave her, the mocking smile that said 'see you are wrong, I am right'. "Is not same as you, you here to help Drykas. If it was same, I would not be so little to hate and deny. I am no princess. I am girl, little in big world." Who was she to try so hard to dislike a people who were so desperate? Would she hate a kitten for eating bird too? Sometimes you have to do things you are not proud of to survive, didn't she understand that?

"I ask you here, show you strider. I want help you learn of Drykas, see Drykas is good. If you not want see, I can no help."

[Taylani]

Taylani sank her face in her hands, more out of defeat then anything else. Struggling to listen but to pull her tattered emotions back to her, to shore up her psyche once more. "You are Drykas. You have vested interest in Drykas. You will have me die for Drykas to live, what is the difference?" She speaks, now trying to be softer less abrasive. She still does not understand how the other could defend slavery and forced breeding of others. Perhaps for Drykas the intimacy of a man and woman was something so common place that there was nothing special about it. Perhaps that is why the other does not understand why it was so hard for Taylani to be taken from her own home and her own life so that these people could use her womb for their own purposes. "Your people might not have killed my body, but they have killed me all the same...to ensure they have another womb."

She does not smile now, nor does she turn her back to the other instead she tilts her head, her face blank of all emotion. "If Drykas need women so badly that it excuses stealing from other cities, then how come one is so willing to part with a Drykas that wants to give babies? If Drykas were so bad off that we should be more then happy to be captive to their men, then it would seem to me that they would be upset that one wants to give away a perfectly willing female."Her first soft smile, and a simple shake of her head. "You do not understand. That your situation is the same as mine. I do not want to be forced to be the solution of Drykas, you do not want to be forced to be solution to your father's problem. I am sorry." she did not apologize for her stance that it was wrong of the Drykas raiders to capture her and force her here. She did not apologize that she felt that she shouldn't be forced to be a breeder. She did apologize in sympathy, because no matter if this other girl does wish to make her breeding stock she still did not deserve to be sold any more then Taylani herself did.

"We will never agree that it is ok to force women to bear children against their will. You will never convince me that these people are good, however I do wish to learn. Not for me, but so I know for ..for my ..for Fallan's children." She falters a little at the end but she manages to finish with a simple shudder and sigh.

[Naiya]

"I am still here, yes? No way for father to sell me without angering Old Drykas." That was probably the only thing keeping her from being sold to strangers from a strange city, the Drykas Elders would be outraged at such a thing in times such as these. "Is no good for you to be here like this. I mean only you find happy that you not come here because Drykas think fun to steal people." She discarded the rest of the girl's speech, too few words she understood to be of any use to her.

She looked at the other girl, she had gone from emotional to blank so quickly Rue had missed the transition. She shook her head, "We not agree. Is.." She ended up without a word for it, which was funny since the word she searched for was exactly that, nothing.

She shook her head to resettle her emotions. "Come, meet." She switched back to her native tongue, speaking slowly so that the girl could follow her words and signing. "This," she gestured to the looming horse who had finally given up and gone back to grazing, "Is Wildfire." She pointed to herself, "He is my strider. We are partners." She tried to remember the Common word for that, to explain. "Together," She showed with her hands, entwining her fingers, "Here." She touched her chest above her heart, glad to have a pavi word she knew the girl would recognize.