Seasons May Change (Khara)

by **Zhol** on September 16th, 2014, 1:35 am

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"Yes you have."

Zhol couldn't remember ever saying words with as much certainty as he said those. His brow furrowed, not in confusion or disapproval, but in sheer determination at how vital it was that he made himself understood. His hands shifted, gently, not suddenly; they slid beneath her forearms, twisting enough to take hold of her hands, raising them both to hang in the air between them. His thumbs gently caressed the length of her fingers, but his eyes never for a second broke their steadfast gaze into hers.

"Your mother looked at you like you were nothing," he echoed quietly, twisting Khara's words and story around to tell an entirely different view, "Merely because you did not live up to the expectations she chose for you. You want to be angry at her for not loving you unconditionally, but every time you try, all you see is the disappointment in her eyes, and all you feel is shame, and blame; it's your fault for not being good enough; it's your fault for letting her down."

A soft sigh escaped him; the faintest flicker of a bitter smile tugging at his lips. "I know that pain. I feel that pain." Gently he moved her hands, laying them against his chest, holding them there with his own. "I feel it here, every time my doubts speak to me with the voice of my father; every time I close my eyes and see his hate and disappointment staring back."

He fell silent, one hand breaking away to reach out towards her, brushing a loose strand of ginger hair back into place, tucked behind her ear. His fingers lingered against her skin a few moments longer than they should have; he found it hard to care. "I failed at every craft and skill I tried, the same as you. I lived in fear of falling off the bottom of society and into the mud below, same as you. Even here, even now, even as an Avora, I am still an outsider to these people, and I am seen as being less than I truly am, the same as you."

His hand settled into place against her shoulder, the backs of his fingers gently stroking down the soft skin of her neck. He shouldn't, but he was; he pushed the reluctance aside. "We are the same, Khara; and we understand what no one else can. If your mother, your friends, your peers, your people, your family; if they cannot give you the unconditional love and respect that you deserve, then ignore them. Forget them. Make a new family."

Only now did his eyes and his hands reluctantly fall away; his gaze was almost pleading when it finally climbed back to her. "Count me as the first, if you like."

"Pavi" | "Common" | "Nari" | "Symenos"
This template was made by Khara. She was bribed with coffee and jammy dodgers.

by **Khara** on September 16th, 2014, 3:21 am

It seemed so obvious and yet she just hadn't seen it that way. Make a new story, make a new family; echos, mirrors, whatever you wanted to call them, they were in plain sight the whole time and yet she'd been completely blind. It wasn't the revelation she was expecting to find out here, at an overlook on the very edge of a new Season, but it was there anyway.

No matter the tumult of other confusing emotions she felt in that moment, especially the rather frustrating flutter that seemed to release the tightening sensation that had gripped her that got stronger with every brush of his fingertips against her, Zhol's words rang true. She had told him in more or less words to let go of the past, to stop letting it define him and here he was, echoing the same lesson back at her. It didn't feel like she was being forced to eat her own words, though. It took seeing a reflection of her own affliction, her unrelenting and unresolved issue with her mother to get the point across.

It didn't matter how their parents had wanted them to be, how they had tried to force them to a mold that neither could fill. They were their own people, following in the footsteps of those that came before them in their own way. Sure, she may never actually achieve the rank of huntress, may never actually rise to become an Avora herself, but for one tiny moment that seemed okay.

Then there was Zhol, extending not just a few comforting - far too comforting - gestures but an offering of kinship. The conflicting feelings took hold again, how was it that such a thing could make her happy and yet... Upset? It didn't make sense, Khara didn't want it to make sense. The weird discomfort with the thought of Zhol as family could be dealt with later, for now she was determined to just let herself feel the happiness that this entire trip to see the watchtower was supposed to be about.

"Can you teach me something?" Her voice had found itself even if the pounding in her chest refused to subside. She didn't wait for the agreement, or refusal, before continuing. "Can you teach me how to say 'I would like that very much' in that language you talk to the horses in?"

"Nari" | "Common"

by **Zhol** on September 16th, 2014, 3:47 am

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A stray thought, from some deep corner of his mind, pointed out how easy it would be for him to feed her false words, have her utter the things parts of him wanted to hear her say without her ever knowing. Guilt erupted in an instant at even the notion; and yet not all of it was willing to let go of the idea that it would be worth it, just once, to hear her say what she otherwise would never say.

He refused to indulge that selfish desire, he said. "I would like that very much," he dutifully answered, careful to make his words slow and clear.

His insides twisted into a knot; a different set of words formed in his mind, something half remembered from the oral histories he'd learned back in Endrykas. Some half-remembered fragment of some adoption ritual, that he tried his best to structure into a sentence that makes sense. "This phrase is more important though," he said with hesitance, wondering if the words would have any of the same significance for a girl from such a vastly different world. "It is an oath of sorts, I suppose. A promise."

The words in Pavi rolled off his tongue, broken into short fragments, pronounced as clear as he could make them. He waited until Khara has echoed the words back to him, before he translated them for her into common.

"I add you to my family, for family does not end with blood."

"Pavi" | "Common" | "Nari" | "Symenos"
This template was made by Khara. She was bribed with coffee and jammy dodgers.

by **Khara** on September 16th, 2014, 4:49 am

Khara's face lit up, the surge of excitement that was felt clearly present on every bit of her features. The want to learn to say things in the language that Zhol had brought from his previous home had been a long standing curiosity. She'd watched him endlessly, confused by words that sounded all together like gibberish and had tried, when he wasn't watching of course, to mimic the small hand movements that accompanied the phrases. The need to learn had nudged at her continually, but it was more of the fact it would feel like some sort of grand secret between them that really motivated her. That maybe, if she learned enough, she could say things in the overly familiar way that she did when they were alone but not have to worry about doing it in public. Sure, they would look at her strange for speaking the horse boy's language, but most Inarta didn't exactly grant her the most favorable of glances on an ordinary day anyway.

What had stopped her, what had always held back the request, was the bothersome truth that she would be asking an Avora to teach her something that she had no rights to learn. But here, now, with Zhol telling her that she was something worthwhile to him, the hesitation had vanished.

The first phrase was tried, mangled, and clipped in her accent. "I w-would have th-at bun-ches?" She made a face, horrified at how little she could recall of what he had originally said to her and the way the sounds seemed to crumble upon themselves as she forced her mouth to make the unfamiliar noises. Though like every broken piece of Nari that Zhol attempted, Khara got the feeling that he wouldn't much care if it wasn't entirely correct.

Still, a hand shot up between them, her palm facing him as she jokingly glared at the boy. "No laughing! Let me try the other. You told it was more important, besides."

Her false angry demeanor fled as the fingers of the hand she raised relaxed and folded towards her palm, leaving only her index pointing upwards as if she could somehow draw the words out as it moved in small circles. "Y-you i-is fa-fami-family, and f-family d-on't end with bl-ood?" The end word left her as she squinted, trying to gauge by Zhol's reaction if it was correct, it sounded a lot better than the first one, that was for sure.

The questioning smile, the sudden flush of embarrassment as she utterly butchered what always sounded like a pretty language, it only held for a tick, not long enough at all for Zhol to answer before a sudden sound caught Khara's attention and she spun to look back at the valley. Echoing across the mountains in one ghostly reverberating voice she could hear a familiar countdown that sounded more like the far off call of the Wind Eagles than actual numbers. Some left it for the change of Winter to Spring, but since the famine had let up it later that season it seemed that some Inarta had wanted to keep the tradition going as a means of good luck through the Summer and now into Fall. She wasn't entirely certain how they managed to do it, but as the numbers lessened in value, Khara knew what would happen the instant they ended.

She wanted to point, to make sure that her friend, her family as he called her, was watching but it seemed too crude. Instead, with a perhaps all together foolish smile playing on her lips she simply let herself lean against him where they both sat. Tomorrow morning things would be back to normal. He would just be the horse boy Avora that worked in the stables and she would just be the Chiet game scout who passed by every morning and evening. They would still be friends, but she would still have to treat him different. But for now, that single moment when the sky suddenly lit up, when the entire valley was filled with a brilliant cardinal red as the calendar moved on to a new season, they could just be and Khara wouldn't have traded it for anything.

As the brilliant flash of the watchtower's gem diminished back to the steady red it would appear as for the next ninety-one days, Khara found her hand searching for his once more, small fingers wrapping around his. A deep breath, the first of Fall's, filled her lungs before she finally found the words she wanted to say. "Promise me something? That no matter what happens, no matter what troubles or successes will come from here on out, that it can always be just like this?"

"Nari" | "Common" | "Really bad Pavi"

by **Zhol** on September 16th, 2014, 5:13 am

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Zhol of Wind Reach. Home.

These thoughts drifted through his mind as silence had fallen between them, and for the first time he truly let himself stop, think, and feel that those words were true. Here on this ridge, the torch slowly burning out beside them, the Wind Tower foreshadowing the changing of the leaves, Khara's body leant against him, her fingers interlaced with his; he couldn't imagine wanting to be anywhere else. He couldn't imagine ever moving from this spot; if he could, he'd sit here forever, until the snows of winter came and froze them to stone, never to be parted again. It was as close to perfect as his imagination could conceive.

And yet, when Khara had spoken, when she'd asked for his promise, like this hadn't meant any of those things. Like this was friendship; like this was family. Like this was enjoying each other's company, treating each other as equals, confessing their fears and sharing their pain, but only in private, away from judgemental eyes. Like this was knowing that every smile from her would have to be stolen, every laugh from her would have to be smuggled away and cherished. Like this was knowing that, despite her hand in his, despite their embrace, despite the long lingering gazes into her eyes that he desperately wanted her to understand, this would forever be as far as it went. This far, and no further. The impulse that tightened his chest every time her nervousness nibbled at her lower lip would always go unanswered. The ache in his arm that begged him to reach out and run his fingers through her hair would never ease. The urge to draw her close to him, not just as an embrace but as more, to feel the taste of her lips on his, the feel of her breath on his skin; never satiated, never fulfilled.

Like this was the agony of everything you wanted being a single step away, but knowing that it was a step you could never take.

His heart fell as he answered her request; but there was really nothing else he could say. "I promise," he replied softly, hiding his sadness as best he could, his fingers tightening around hers in a gentle squeeze. "That we will always be this way."

"Pavi" | "Common" | "Nari" | "Symenos"
This template was made by Khara. She was bribed with coffee and jammy dodgers.

by **Neologism** on October 27th, 2014, 12:13 am

Zhol :

Khara :

Closed Seasons May Change (Khara)