PM to join Repercussions, Physical and Emotional[Windchaser Pavilion]P2

[Taylani]

Time Stamp 77 Fall 513

The Windchaser pavilion sat amid the camp of Endrykas, trying to live up to its name with every gust of wind the sides billowing, straining against the tent posts. The weather outside was starting to pick up again, though the storm brewing within the tent was every bit as dangerous. The living area was occupied by a man by the fire, and two women standing near a partition that went to Fallan and Taylani's sleeping area. The fire was coals, but provided enough heat to be comfortable, though comfort does not seem to be in large supply this evening.

Taylani watched Fallan warily, unsure of how he would react, but her own anger had boiled out the fear within her for now. Her fingers stop rubbing her arms, tightening against the purple colored fabric that fit her figure well thanks to Rue Nightsong's tailoring. Her anger also made it impossible for her to feel self-conscious in the more-revealing outfit than was her usual wont, but it did not stop the shiver that ran up her spine when he turned and met her gaze.

She tried to judge just how much he had overheard, but it was all but impossible to tell from his expression that seemed to simply..wait..for something. When Waisana follows her out, Taylani allowed her gaze to drop from his, but she does move to one of the cushions, the one furthest from Fallan. She would have preferred to remain standing, especially since the limp was so much more pronounced now that she did not have the cold, wind, and rain taking her attention from the throbbing ankle. However her body was weary from the ill-judged escape attempt, her arms and legs seemed more leaden then before so rather then sit on the ground, she forced herself to move the few feet to a cushion. When she sat it was with far less fluidity, and more like a stone dropping.

The other woman had already began speaking, for the most part the Pavi sails over her head, but she did not need to be fluent in the language to read into the emotions that shown through the gestures. She did not trust her voice to remain calm, but she couldn't let the younger Drykas continue in Pavi mostly because she did not know what the healer was telling Fallan. She didn't think Waisana would betray her, but then again she had thought that he had the intentions of honoring their agreement and taking her home. Being tied to this thing that Waisana had called a web seemed to defy that promise.

Yet, what she needed to discuss with Fallan she wanted to do it when it was just them. Without the fear of his family interfering, without interruptions. So instead of addressing the object of her anger, she turns her head to Waisana and spoke quietly, trying to interject a warning note in her voice, trying to silently remind Waisana that some things should not be spoke of until she found out exactly how much he heard. "Waisana...I can't understand Pavi..."

[Fallan Windchaser]

He was surprised by the lack of reaction from Taylani, but then he considered the matter from her point of view and decided that he couldn't judge what she was thinking. She didn't accept his offer or refuse it, but his reaction was forestalled by the appearance of the other woman, a blonde whose blue eyes fairly blazed as she spoke. Opal clan he would assume as he listened to the unprovoked tirade.

He gave her his full attention but made no move to comply with her request. Ignoring the request from Taylani he replied in Pavi, his breeches steaming slightly from his remaining close to the coals and he moved slightly away as he spoke.

"I bid you welcome to our Pavilion," his hands flickered slightly to give an edge to the words that could only be sarcastic, "and I thank you for the care that you have given to my partner." Now his hands pulled in closer to his heart, appearing more genuine.

He stood and moved closer to the woman, healer he assumed and slowly looked her up and down appraisingly. "Your concern is noted, but save your advice for your husband." Fallan was tired, cold and still strained from the hunt and his worries, but she provoked him with her commands. The briefest of fantasy crossed his mind and it brought a smile to his lips as he imagined the look of challenge in her eyes change to one of pain and fear. He was restrained though by the time and the place for this was no foreign city that he could disappear away from.

[Waisana]

The healer crossed her arms across her chest as she regarded the man in front of her. Taylani couldn't understand them, judging by her comment, and a glance in her direction showed her wariness. Perhaps she thought that Waisana was spilling her secrets in Pavi so that she wouldn't know. The idea of such distrust hurt her but considering herself in the woman's position she could understand. 

She resisted the urge to spit at the man when he told her to give her advice to her husband. The nerve of the man! She could say what she liked to him and how dare he suggest otherwise. Shooting one last filthy look in his direction, accompanied by a rude gesture, the healer turned her attention to the young woman. Smiling reassuringly at her, Waisana switched back to Common.

"Sorry, Taylani. I'm aware that your grasp of Pavi isn't good but I needed to give your husband my honest opinion about him. He doesn't appreciate it apparently," she explained, her tone apologetic. The teen avoided looking at Fallan for the moment.

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[Taylani]

It was perhaps Waisana that saved Fallan from a reaction from Taylani, her fingers already curling into a nearby cushion when he continued to speak in Pavi. The frustration of only being able to understand a word here or there on top of the anger and , yes betrayal to find that he had chained her to Endrykas as surely as if he had used real chains was enough to make her itch to throw something at him. However Waisana broke the tension by speaking to her in common, though her words did not bring her any comfort.

This was the second time someone had referred to Fallan as her husband, her stomach churning again, though this time from anxiety, stress, and emotions that drained her. "He is not my...." She started to speak, before looking from Waisana to Fallan, her eyes widening and her breathing quickening. When she speaks it is in a strained voice, as if every fiber of her being was put into making sure her words are quiet and collected, not harsh and violent. "Did you ever intend...really intend..on taking me home?" Despite her best efforts her voice wobbled at the end, and for some reason that she didn't want to examine too closely she felt a sense of disappointment in that question. "You didn't did you? That's why you ..." She stopped for a moment, looking at Waisana trying to remember the phrase the healer had used, "That's why you tied me to the-the Web of yours..." Her voice rose in pitch as she talked, the control slipping out as she struggled to come to grips with reality. "You ..stole my life..and possibly my futures..and...and.."

Her words trailed off, the anger that had so stirred in her succumbing to the pain of the thought of everything that made her herself being lost out here among the people, and the knowledge that no matter the fight she put up it would not change things. Along with the extreme weariness of fighting, of trying to push back these people, trying to keep herself from emotional entanglements, it was too much for anyone to keep up for long. Taylani has been with the Drykas for what would amount to a full season, sometimes even the most stubborn of heads must acknowledge that they fought a good fight, but still was defeated.

[Fallan Windchaser]

Another time and another place perhaps, but for now he considered that he had made his point, for she did not enter into an argument about throwing him out of his own families pavilion. Her gesture amused him, an act of defiance that was typical in his mind of a woman who thought herself invulnerable to the consequences of her arrogance.

For the time being he ignored her and turned his attention to Tay, and after she spoke he squatted down where he could see her from the same eye level and could make his points from an equal footing.

"Fallan promise, Fallan not break promise." He left it unsaid that of the two of them it had not been him who had attempted to renege on the bargain. That much was clear to him even if it was not to her, who attempted to push that blame onto him.

He did take time for a measured stare at the healer who it seemed had a big mouth and very little common sense, or at least the sense to check with her own family on how the Drykas viewed the captives. But it was done now, and sooner or later it was inevitable, and at least it had not been him who had broken the instruction to keep that piece of knowledge away from Tay.

"All tied to web. Me, you, her," he inclined his head to the healer. "All family part of web, keeps safe. Sea of Grass hold many dangers, those not webbed die quickly." Being able to keep a track of her was a bonus, but it wasn't the primary reason that he'd asked his father to do it and would have done regardless of instruction by the Auctioneer.

He reached out and took her hands, both to keep her attention and to offer comfort, though he made no attempt to keep them if she pulled back.

"Fallan not steal. Fallan protect. Tay family. When Tay leave, Fallan sad." He made an effort to string together a coherent sentence together in Common, though now his hands if they were unencumbered by holding her hands would have shifted unconciously in the emphases of Pavi. "When Tay ready to go Syrilas, Fallan take there, but Tay take part of Fallans heart."

Of course he hoped and planned that such a thing never happened and had even considered options if it did for he did not intend to let go of Taylani easily, but such words were not appropriate now. For the now he doubted that she would believe him, but it was worth the chance to plant the seeds in her mind.

[Taylani]

When he squatted, Taylani tenses but she doesn't move, her eyes watching him from between a curtain of black lashes. Without the anger, without the bitterness, and without the defensive shields she had thrown up and kept so tightly around her, her expression was one that was both lost and alone. Vulnerability was not a comfortable position for Taylani but she had no more strength to prevent it.

His explanation about the web made sense, "Then why keep it secret? If it is just for protection? Waisana..she said that their is a belief that those tied to the web were bound even in the next life." Her words were quiet now, lacking the heat of anger, the chill of hatred, laid bare now of all emotion. Her eyes turn toward the healer, uncertainty and confusion clouding their blue depths, so much so that when he takes her hands she inhales in surprise but does not pull her hands back.

Though she doesn't pull her hands back, neither does she return the gesture. Instead she allows her hands to lay in his quietly, recognizing that his own hands were not as warm as they should be. When he speaks again her eyes go back to his, and her heart leaped to her throat, and now her hands are drawn back from his quickly more from surprise then anything else. What was his game? Surely that was what this was, because certainly he couldn't be saying what it sounded as if was saying. Was this just another way to wear her down?

Out here, she had no family. At least she didn't think she had family, she was alone with no one she could trust. Yet, Fallan seemed to be claiming her as family. Not just a slave. Tears fell unbidden, but they are ignored by Taylani as she turned to Waisana. "You are not the first one to ..to call him my husband. The other.." She had almost said healer, but that particular visit to the healers was still a secret for she still was unaware if he had over heard or not and instinctively she sought to keep him from having too much of the upper hand. "There was another who also called him my husband. Why did you think he was that..and not just ..as if I wasn't simply a slave."

[Waisana]

The healer watched silently as Fallan went to kneel beside Taylani. The words passing between them, particularly his words, made it sound as if there was something deeper between them than she'd first thought. The only thing, however, was that some people could weave words, lies so believable that they could totally fool a person. He obviously didn't have a good grasp of the language but he knew all the right things to say. Waisana didn't like that.

When the woman directed a question at her, the teen blinked in surprise. She'd never thought about it before, it was just something automatic. If a man bought a captive woman, she was his wife as he was her husband. There wasn't anything particularly complicated about it but the woman didn't seem to realise that so Waisana thought carefully before answering.

"Being bought doesn't always make you a slave. It means you are bound by the person who buys you but if you marry another are you not bound to them also?" the girl said, choosing her words carefully. What she was saying was true, not that she'd ever really thought about it before.

"Everyone is a slave in their own way. A slave to custom, a slave to duty, a slave to their people. Not everyone is bought and sold but yet...slaves."

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[Taylani]

The former dancer shifted on the cushion she was sitting on, trying to relieve the heaviness that had descended upon her limbs. The healers words reach Taylani's ears, but she struggled to understand what the healer was saying at first. Everything about these people seemed so complicated and backwards, leaving her confused and perhaps just a little paranoid and suspicious. Perhaps the Drykas did not view marriage as something so important or meaningful as she was taught. Perhaps for the Drykas it was simply giving a woman to a man for his use, this thought in her head solidified in her mind the justifications of her running away. However, even Taylani can see that her habit of assuming information from someone's words was not helpful in this matter, in her bid to understand.

"The..Drykas have a different view of marriage then? In Syliras marriage does bind two people together.." Her blue eyes move from Waisana to Fallan, looking into his grey eyes for a long pause before she continued, "But equally, not with one person subjugating the other to their wishes and desires..not forcing their customs and life on another..but to share their lives and customs..."

Then Taylani turned her gaze from Fallan back to the healer, one brow raisingn quizzically. "Drykas it is different? For all or just for those "wives" who are bought?" her emphasis on the word wives speaking about her disdain about the title being used for women who were bought like one buys a pet dog. "Women given over to their new husbands like they were belongings? Is this why you are fighting your families wishes to marry? Is that what any girl-child in the Drykas community has to look forward to? Their dreams and their desires overridden by whoever they are sold to? Sold either on the auction block like cattle, or in the privacy of a tent."

[Fallan Windchaser]

The conversation was suddenly diving into complex and deep areas which they had not attempted to discuss before and worse the presence of the healer was an unknown and he knew that she was not an ally of his, so he needed to place his words carefully.

He started by shifting his answer back to a previous point in the hope of distracting at least some attention away from exactly how the question of wives had been addressed.

"You ask webbing, lives tied to web, family, then wives. Many questions, many answers." He paused, collecting his thoughts.

"Tied to web not soul tied, not reborn Drykas. For some yes. Ankal yes, workers in web sometimes. Work deep with web ties soul to web. Fallan soul not tied, Tay soul not tied, children not tied. Tay die, not reborn here." She had been here long enough, it was time that she was brought to understand the reality of life here, for she clung stubbornly to assumptions she had made without asking.

"Man, woman, make bond with Strider. Fallan and Stormdancer, yes?" He waited for some form of acknowledgement from Taylani though he wasn't sure she actually understood the bonding process, "Then they Drykas, not matter where born. If Drykas then family." The subject of marriage was more complicated and it was harder to explain without agreeing with her fears on the subject.

"Marriage complicated. On good day, never forced, both equal. But even Syrilas not the case every marriage." He was a little surprised that she could hold this view of marriage because it sounded like something from the stories of the old days before the world died. Few peoples could afford when it came to real life to be so picky about who and when they were married. For most it was a means first and foremost for their family and by extension for their race to survive. Certainly it was true of the Drykas who still lived above the tunnels in which they had barely managed to survive for so many long years.

He was answering a question that he hadn't been asked, so he allowed the healer to finish the answer since he was curious as to her views on the subject.

[Waisana]

Waisana bit her lip trying to think of how best to articulate her thoughts. The woman had obviously dwelled on the idea of being sold and hadn't taken into account what the healer had said. One wrong word and the woman would seize on it so she had to tread carefully. She did her best to expand the topic of marriage that Fallan had touched on.

"Marriage is special for Drykas. If my family wanted me to marry, they'd give money to my husband. It's to help towards my upkeep, my standard of living. The Drykas are small in number and need more children, need more marriages. They pay men who capture women to repay them for their work, for the food given to the women. They pay their...the money they owe," the teen told her, enunciated her words slowly and carefully as she thought through what she was saying. That was the best way she could think to phrase it.

"Marriages can go wrong if the husband beats the wife but that's not the normal way. Women are not property. Do husbands in other places not sometimes beat their wives? Sometimes men tell their wives what to do, not always the case," Waisana explained, looking to Fallan for confirmation but looking away when she realised what she was doing.

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