Closed All of the world in a teaspoon.

[Tia'aria]

27th of Winter, 513 AV

Lately, something of a frenzy had gripped the normally placid, even-tempered Konti, changing a demure personality into something more open, more at ease. Mischief adorned her features more than the subdued nuances of discomfort, or a shy temperament. Tia'aria, for all intents and purposes, was finally opening up, more than before, to her fellows working at Sanctuary, primarily to Cadra, her fellow cook, who Tia was immediately fond of, for she owned a cat of her own, and felt that she understood Cadra better than she did anybody else that didn't share her native languages. Maybe it was the gestures, the expressions, but there was a distinctive feline appeal to Cadra that made Tia more amicable. With Larik, she was a little more subdued, but still comfortable enough to relax. With Vanator, Kavala, it was the same. There were other faces, other names, but Tia was a standoffish creature when it came to strangers, particularly non-Konti and non-Akalak strangers that she felt had little reason to be in the city.

Cadra was there now, heating milk over the fire, allowing Tia to prattle to her in Tukant. Even though both women did not understand each other, there was still some measure of saving grace that allowed them to get the gist of what the other was saying, and even though Tia spoke rapidly as she kneaded dough, flour up to her elbows and coating the front of her apron, there was no frustration. This was one of their habits, a practise they performed when they cooked together. This being the noon bell meal, it was just another tradition to take turns ranting about this or that while the other listened in silence. An easy sort of thing.

This was calm. Peaceful. Easy. A rhythm attained only by a few seasons of learning the movements.

Tia hardly stopped in her rapid-fire speech, kneading the dough with more intent, when the door opened, admitting a figure she often found herself even more wary of, for the gilded horns and the shimmer of his skin offset by the distinct lack of both in a later hour unsettled her, more than any human or other foreigner ever did. She only hesitated in her kneading of the dough, glancing over warily, quickly hiding her face away afterwards, and allowed Cadra to greet the guest, removing the milk from the heat before it burned. Tia would listen, even if she could only catch a few words outside of the very few basic ones she knew. Falling silent in her own words, her kneading slowed.

[Caelum]

There was a story about a cat. It was not one anyone at the Sanctuary knew. Indeed the ethaefal would have been surprised if more than maybe two men left living recalled either the cat or the tale. Caelum had never told the story himself and it was, after all, his story. It had also been his cat. The cat’s name had been Cora. She had been small and pale and lithe both in and out of fur. Her eyes had been mint green and her hands frantic and fluttery and forceful. Other than being a cat, Cora was nothing like shy Cadra and, for that, Caelum was unspeakably grateful. Cora, of course, was dead and had been dead now for five years exactly on this past ninetieth day of autumn. Caelum had lain awake that night, remembering a room filled with waterlight and the thunderous silence of the celestial language as it scratched and scrabbled for a foothold in his mind. Alander Jin’s eyes had been dark in Rhysol’s shadow, boring into his back; and though thousands of miles and half a revolution of a lifetime was now between them, Caelum still imagined he could hear Cora howl. He’d traced his tongue along the backs of his teeth, feeling for the scar. He had stopped the sin of Delucia before it could be borne into breath. It was Cora, however, who had paid the price. Cat got your tongue? If only. And that was still only half of Caelum’s story about a cat. Caelum smiled at Cadra now while hanging his split riding jacket on a hook near the hearth. He brought with him the scent of wind, the air of the Within shivering a bit around him. Winter’s sunlight was rich and pale in his skin, the sleeves of his sweater shoved up as he ambled loose hipped toward the counter the divided the kitchen space from the broader living area. “No,” he told Cadra, responding to her curious questions. The language he used was Common, every bit of awkward in his mouth because there was no mortal language of Mizahar for which his mouth had been shaped. He couldn’t even say his own name, so of course he had settled – Caelum. That had been a bitter hour. “It’s quiet today,” he went on. “There’s gulls circling. They’re getting hungrier, I think, since the snow settled. Hullo.” This last was for Tia’aria whose work his eyes dropped to, studying the dough she was kneading as if he was watching a gadgeteer at work. It was equally as alien. The sound of her Tukant still echoed in his ears, and he knew the language to recognize it of course; but he did not yet speak it. The line of his mouth shifted. He had long since taken note of her wariness, and he didn’t blame her. He had been a stranger everywhere he went for a very long time. He was still not accustomed to being known. “I speak a little Kontinese,” he informed her finally in her racial tongue, his tone mellow. He did not explain why or from whom he had learned it. That was a different story still. Golden eyes picked up and his smile feinted. “Between that and your Common, maybe we can teach each other.”

[Tia'aria]

Pale hands settled atop the dough, and teal eyes lifted to look directly at the cutting figure the Ethaefal made, considering him. Her chattiness with Cadra had died as quickly as he had arrived; turned into something introverted and wary, Tia could hardly settle to be as at ease around this new face, this new race entirely, as she was around a Kelvic cat.

"That's a first," the remark was dry, sprinkled with wry humour. Truly, it was. Even Kavala spoke little Kontinese, if at all. She had switched to the more familiar language with his admittance. It would be unfair to continue along in Tukant. Unfair, and horribly imprudent. For Cadra's sake, Tia had to grimace and bear the even less familiar Common language. "You are well?"

Having passed by that nicety, and forced to bear the weight of her own, rather unfortunate, superficial dislike of a strange man, Tia returned her gaze to the dough at hand, finished with the kneading and trying to recall the next step. Ever so painfully aware she had an audience now, she soon stopped with that endeavor, but was unwilling to look up for her own fluster.

"Did you want something?" In Common chopped with a Tukant-inspired Kontinese accent, she spoke slowly to work her tongue over sounds that were put together oddly, in her opinion. She would have offered him food, perhaps even some milk, but was his kind able to eat and drink like everybody else? She'd not seen one do so before. Oh, how bad she felt, to speak so curtly. Her mother would have laid a ladle over the back of her hand for the nerve.

With that heartening thought, reminiscence unbidden, she smiled, just slightly, and allowed herself another peek at this strange person that entered her kitchen. "Perhaps just want food? Or to talk?" There. Much better.