A Stable Relationship

by **Zhol** on January 22nd, 2015, 11:36 pm

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..2nd Winter, 514

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If Zhol had to guess, his feet were about eight inches off the ground about now. That was how he felt at least, as if the stone floors of Wind Reach's tunnels had been replaced with a cushion of clouds and meadow grass, and he was striding merrily along atop them. His arm ached a little as it swung at his side, the sling hanging ready for use around his neck like some kind of odd scarf. Zhol couldn't remember the fancy names for the part of him that the healers had said were injured, but they were still giving him a little grief; or trying to at least, but he was too caught up in himself to even care.

No, that wasn't true: not caught up in himself, caught up in her. Caught up in Khara. Caught up in the sight of her eyes that clung to the backs of his eyelids, finally able to be studied without subterfuge and memorised in exquisite detail. Caught up in the tingling sensation left behind where her body had pressed against his, having hugged against him not in sorrow or friendship, but in the open and honest affection that they had both been shocked and astounded and overjoyed to discover that they shared. Caught up in the remembered feeling of her lips against his, each kiss replaying in his mind over and over. Caught up in the sound of her voice as she'd confessed how she had felt, and the smile that had blossomed like a flower on her features when he'd done the same.

He'd walked her to the gates, walked her to work like he'd done so many times before, bid his farewells as she set off to risk her life in the Unforgiving for a city that didn't appreciate her. But it had been different this time, and not just because of the long, lingering kiss that he'd gently placed upon her lips to stop her fidgeting so much as she struggled to make herself let go of his hand, or the curled fingers of grassland sign that she'd gestured with from a distance, a message of affection that no one else in Wind Reach but he or she could possibly understand.

It was different because for the first time in too many days to count, he watched her leave and didn't feel as if a chain was trying to tear his heart from his chest. He watched her leave and his mind didn't flood with worries of what would have gone unsaid if anything happened to her. He was still concerned - mortified, actually - that something might happen to her beyond the walls of Wind Reach, but this time it was different. This time, he'd been able to say to her something that he'd never been able to say to her before.

I love you, Khara. I'll miss you.

Zhol felt so happy he almost whistled, though better judgement stopped that from being the sound that heralded his entrance into the Skyhigh Stables. Even so, his good mood didn't go unnoticed; not by Solo at least, who sputtered indignantly at him as he passed.

"Good morning to you too, friend," he replied cheerfully, sauntering between the stable stalls, eyes casually sweeping across his surroundings.

The stables had changed a little these past few days, in preparation for the winter. The horses that were usually spaced out across the stables two hundred and some stalls for convenience - far easier to muck out stalls if there was an empty one right next to it to shuffle the horse into - had all been moved as deep into the stables as possible, and as far from the doorway to the outside world as they could get. The vast wooden doors had been slammed shut against the winter cold and thoroughly bolted; after the riots last year, extra precautions had been taken to safeguard the horses from any roving packs of hungry, short-sighted Inarta, and Zhol could see the new locks and bars that had been freshly bolted on.

They wouldn't be shut for the entire winter, and if anything, the stables became busier during the colder months: sled caravans from elsewhere in Kalea found the snow a swifter medium for travel, and would be coming and going, bolstering Wind Reach's own eagle trade routes with vital supplies during the cold. That was part of why the horses had been packed tighter together, to make room for potential visitors; the rest of the reason was purely huddling for warmth, and keeping them as close to the iron braziers that they would soon be dragging out into the aisles and keeping lit as much as possible. That meant later hours of course, the stable employees taking it in turns to stoke the fires late at night so that they'd burn on until the morning; and with dried horse manure preferred as a fuel over Wind Reach's valuable and limited wood supplies, it was certainly an aromatic time of year; but this was what the horses needed, and it was what Zhol would unquestioningly be a part of.

"Someone is in a good mood this morning," a playful voice observed; a few moments and a sway of long red hair peered out from the tack room, a tiny and pleasantly-smiling face following in it's wake. It wasn't his Khara, sadly, but that didn't make her appearance an unwelcome one.

"Someone is," Zhol replied, an enigmatic smile firmly affixed to his features.

Kami's face furrowed into a suspicious frown. She abandoned whatever task had been keeping her occupied and advanced towards him, peering upwards at him as if perceiving him from a different angle, or looking up underneath his eyelids would somehow uncover the truth of what was going on. Zhol's expression changed. Suddenly, Kami's did.

"You told her," Kami breathed, a mix of worry and surprise and wonder skipping back and forth between her words. Zhol's smile grew ever so slightly. "And she told you?"

Zhol couldn't stop himself from a full-fledged grin, and Kami echoed it with one of her own within an instant. A high-pitched noise escaped her as she launched herself at him, flinging her arms around his neck, so much force involved that Zhol staggered for balance, and Kami's boots bid the floor a complete farewell. A stab of a wince of pain disrupted Zhol's grin for a brief moment, but subsided as Kami finally released him, and slid back to the floor.

"I told you," she said indignantly, taking a step back and fixing him with an all-knowing look.

Zhol tried to stop smiling and retaliate with a stern look of his own, but failed utterly. "You did," he conceded, willing to bear the brunt of the I told you so without so much as a flinch; there wasn't a thing in creation that could dent this particular good mood.

Kami's eyes lit up with excitement and intrigue, questions tumbling from her mouth at a rapid pace. "What did you say? What did she say? Where did it happen? Were there candles? Did you -" She trailed off into a gasp, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper as she leaned forward, peering into Zhol's eyes in search of deceit. "Did you kiss her?"

Another uncontrollable smile vied for control of Zhol's expression. "I did."

Her voice was barely more than a hoarse breath now. "Was it wonderful?"

Zhol's face turned a distinctive and radiant shade of crimson at that question, but that didn't stop him from forcing out a sheepish answer. "It was, yeah."

Another high-pitched squeak escaped from Kami, loud enough to make several of the horses grumble in protest, but Kami didn't pay any attention. She almost looked happier than Zhol at the news, impossible as that was; if Zhol could somehow harness that energy and release it into the world, he didn't doubt it'd be enough to keep the stables sweltering hot all winter.

"You are going to tell me everything," she insisted, with stern enthusiasm. "Everything that happened, everything you did, everything your planning to do, everywhere you're planning to take her. Just because you're both feeling the same feelings, and you're all gooey inside, doesn't mean you get to just coast along without trying. You've been moping about this girl for as long as I can remember. I am not about to let you go and screw this - Hansi!"

A flash of confusion swept across Zhol's features, and he wondered if he'd stumbled across some word or turn of phrase in Common or Nari that he didn't understand. Realisation was slow to dawn; when it finally did, Zhol span on his heels, turning to face the man that Kami must have seen over his shoulder.

"Zhol is in love," Kami announced enthusiastically; Zhol didn't understand the words, but from the tone he got the gist of it, and the redness in his features started firmly entrenching itself.

"Good for him," Hansi muttered back gruffly, barely even registering the words or the sentiment that had been conveyed. "I need you clearing out the far stalls, boy. The annex too. Things need to be ready for when the sleigh crews start arriving, and they'll need somewhere out of the weather for their sleds and their cargo, as well as their horses."

Zhol's heart sank at the monumental task that represented. Since the end of last Winter, the stable master's solution to any problem had been dump it in the annex, we'll worry about it later, almost without exception. Broken saddles, damaged carts, the panelling from the stall that the rowdy mule had kicked to pieces; all that junk, all that lifting. A wave of inspiration surged through him, and quicker than a flash of lightning, Zhol's arm slipped from his side and back into his sling. He waved at it vaguely with his uninjured hand. "I'm not sure I can do that just yet, I have -"

"- to help me with the medicinals," Kami interjected, her excuse-making reflexes apparently much swifter and better honed than Zhol's. "I want to make sure that we're fully stocked up on everything we might need as quickly as possible, just in case there are any last-minute supplies that I need to venture out into the Unforgiving to get. Zhol kindly offered to help me, so that we can be done as quickly as possible. But don't worry." She flashed Hansi an unfailingly disarming smile. "We'll get everything done, quick as hands can do."

A grunt and a sigh merged together as Hansi replied. "Fine," he muttered, shaking his head, already wandering off into the depths of the stable to do whatever it was he did whenever he wasn't plainly in view. "Make sure that it is!" he added gruffly, over his shoulder.

The instant he had disappeared from sight, Kami grabbed hold of Zhol's arm, and yanked him with more force than seemed possible from her tiny frame, dragging him into the tack room, and yanking the door closed behind him. "Start talking," she demanded in an almost hungry, hissed whisper, that bordered on the edge of threatening, "And don't spare the details."

by **Zhol** on February 12th, 2015, 6:30 pm

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"I thought you were kidding about the medicinals," Zhol muttered, his nose wrinkling at the strange smell that erupted as he squished the pestle into the strange mix of leaves and slimy paste that coated the mortar Kami had thrust into his hands.

"The best excuse is an honest excuse," Kami replied, with the kind of tone that people adopted when they were quoting a proverb. It wasn't one that Zhol was familiar with, but then, that was true of almost everything about Wind Reach; this place and it's people were still mostly a mystery to him, even after more than a year among them. "Besides," Kami added, a slight disapproving edge creeping into her voice, "Caring for animals is important. It's time you learned how to do that without needing to wrestle llamas and set poor innocent ponies on fire."

Heat danced it's way into Zhol's ears at that comment. Using his reimancy to cauterise the puncture wound that had torn up Asfodel's side during the accident in the mines last season had been an act of desperation, and while it had all turned out for the best in the end, it had taken a while for Kami to stop glaring at him for his actions. She had been threatening to educate him better every few days since, and apparently now the time had come; and Zhol welcomed it. The sound of Asfodel's pain, and the knowledge of what he had inflicted haunted the corners of his mind; it was not something he cared to repeat.

"Fine, fine," Zhol muttered back, careful to emphasise the light-hearted sarcasm enough that Kami would understand even though it wasn't in her native tongue. He squinted at his efforts, before brandishing the mortar towards her. "Am I doing this right?"

Kami took one look, and drew in a breath as if she were about to speak, but her lungs froze mid-way, her eyes conflicted about how brutally honest to be. "Not really, no," she settled upon, grabbing hold of the mortar with one hand, and Zhol's wrist with the other. She guided him through the motions again, twisting the pestle as it pressed into the leaves. "You're meant to be mashing the leaves, not swishing them. Twisting will help break up the plant fibres, and that sprinkle of sand we added will help with the grinding."

Kami released her grip, and Zhol tried to continue, doing his best to follow her instructions. It was strange, and awkward, and uncomfortable; it felt suspiciously like crafting, and every time that notion crossed his mind, a surge of panic leapt through him, old anxieties and half-remembered words of disappointment in his father's voice rattling around in his mind. He couldn't do crafting; he'd failed enough times and been reminded of it often enough for that fact to have been etched into his mind like runes on stone. Today though he had a defense; a countermeasure that for now seemed to be working. Every time that anxiety reared it's ugly head, he closed his eyes and focused on the face that was waiting for him there; those gorgeous eyes, that heart-melting smile, the sound of her voice. His heart swelled at the thought of his Khara, and that bottomless joy swept over him like a soothing summer breeze.

"What even is this?" Zhol managed to ask, peering at the odd mix of ingredients that he was attempting to crush together.

Kami shrugged, measuring out various ingredients for her own more complicated concoctions. "You tell me," she countered, with the kind of voice that people used when they were trying to tease answers out of a disheartened child, equal parts encouraging and gently condescending. Zhol might have been annoyed, or insulted even, if it wasn't exactly the sort of voice he needed to hear.

His shoulders busy with their mixing task, his face shrugged for him instead. "The leaves smell a little like Iskyny Tea?" he answered cautiously, studying Kami's reactions for any signs of confirmation. "And the berries, I guess they might be rugberries? You said this was for treating wounds, and I know Rugberry Tea is good for that." He frowned as he tilted the mortar, trying to study the contents a little better. "I'm not sure about the flaky parts though. Or the flower parts."

Kami offered him a warm smile. "Two out of four isn't a bad guess for someone who claims he doesn't know a thing about herbs and philters," she enthused. "You're right about the leaves - they're from the Iskyny plant. I know you've been taking it to help you sleep; our wound cream won't be quite as effective as if it was brewed into a tea, but absorbed into the blood it'll help relax the injured animal, and it makes a good catalyst that helps the other ingredients to work faster."

Her smile lingered as she studied Zhol's features, watching to see how well the information was sinking in. "And you're right - those are rugberries. The flaky parts on the other hand, that's bark from a krolar tree. Krolar Poultices are great for numbing pain, and they encourage wounds to heal faster as well. The wildflowers are there as a binding agent, though some of them have effects of their own as well."

Zhol's face was locked in an expression of concentration; no man alive had ever focused so hard on squishing ingredients together inside a small ceramic bowl. To his dismay however, everything still looked very much like clumpy individual ingredients; at best, it seemed as if they might have been briefly chewed and spat out again, but certainly nothing like the pastes that he had seen Kami make on her own.

"I don't think I'm very good at this," Zhol said quietly, a mix of dismayed and resigned.

Kami's blunt reply was launched without hesitation. "You didn't think Khara had any feelings for you either. You were wrong then, and you were wrong now." The words hit Zhol like a club, but Kami didn't stop to let his embarrassment truly take hold. "Besides, all you're doing at this stage is breaking up the ingredients. There's still plenty more steps to go yet. Here."

Before Zhol could react, Kami snatched the mortar and pestle from his hands and, after a moment or two of additional squishing and grinding, she set the pestle aside, grabbed a small metal spatula, and began scraping the agitated ingredients out into a small glass container, orb-shaped at the bottom, but narrower at the top. "We need to add a little alcohol and boil things down next. It's like making a stew - first you chop up all the ingredients, and then you add in the juices and leave it to simmer for a while."

Rather than alleviating Zhol's anxiety, Kami only managed to bring a little bashful colour back to Zhol's features. "I don't know how to cook either," he admitted sheepishly.

Kami countered with a theatrical sigh. "It's a good job you're so inseparable from your Khara these days," she mused. "If you went anywhere on your own, you'd probably get lost in the wilderness, starve to death, and be eaten by bears. She couldn't manage to force the good-natured, sympathetic smile from her features. "Can you at least manage to light the brazier for me?"

Zhol smiled nervously. "Yeah," he replied timidly, already drawing upon his inner reserves, willing res to begin seeping from his forms, coalescing in the palm of his hand. He reached over to the brazier, already stacked with fuel, and with an extra squeeze of will and intent, encouraged the res in his palm to burst into flame before coaxing it from his hand and across the dried horse manure that the Inarta used for fuel to spare their wood reserves. His smile broadened a little as the brazier crackled into life. "That I can do."

Kami sighed, and rolled her eyes. "Show-off."

by **Zhol** on March 11th, 2015, 11:48 pm

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While Zhol's foray into medicine making had been frustrating due to his lack of knowledge, the expedition into the annex was frustrating for a whole different set of reasons. While the pain in his injured arm was bearable, the limited functionality was not. It would only straighten so far; wouldn't grip or lift with the strength that it was supposed to. It was like trying to steer a wagon with reins that kept getting snagged; there was only so much that you could do.

Kami's help was invaluable though, even if her constant demand for details had left Zhol's face in an almost perpetual state of red. She'd wanted to know every word, every look, every gesture, every expression. She'd glared at him angrily when he'd explained everything that had happened back in Fall; she'd even thumped him in his wounded arm when Zhol had admitted that his few tendays of moping had been his own doing, his own stupid fears and anxieties. That glare had softened into sympathy though as he had explained further; she almost looked like she was going to hug him at one point, though she changed her mind on that. Probably for the best, all things considered; a few rambling sentences later, and Zhol began to explain Khara's mistaken belief that there was something romantic lingering between Kami and Zhol.

"I'm not sure if I should be flattered or insulted," she muttered, hoisting her the end of a discarded beam that she and Zhol were attempting to move.

While most things in Wind Reach were constructed from stone, a few things were by necessity crafted out of Skyinarta's all too sparse and valuable wood reserves. When something broke, the way that this beam had, it wasn't simply discarded, or thrown on the burn heap: it was saved, waiting for the opportunity to prove useful again. The same was true of many things in the annex; some things Zhol couldn't identify, while others - like the remnants of the broken mining wagon that had split an axle back in early Fall - were uncomfortably familiar. A cursory glance, and Zhol could still see the smudge of red from where an unfortunate miner had found himself fatally pinned beneath. For a brief moment, his heart sank.

"Depends," Zhol countered, trying his hardest to take a little extra strain with his good arm. "Most people I know could find the suggestion of them shacking up with an outsider to be pretty offensive."

The words had tumbled out casually enough, off-hand and almost joking even; but that didn't temper Kami's reaction in the slightest. She dropped the beam instantly, the sudden shift in weight jarring Zhol's arm painfully. "That's the sort of person you think I am?" she accused, far more anger in her words than Zhol would have expected.

"No, I -" the horse boy stammered, expression turning flustered.

Kami didn't give him the opportunity to talk, slowly beginning to stalk forward towards him. "You think I'm judgemental? Prejudiced?"

Zhol took a step of retreat backwards. "I didn't mean -"

"Maybe I should kiss you," Kami threatened, her voice almost a snarl, "Just to prove that I'm not."

Zhol's sense of reality snapped. "Wh- what?"

The glare managed to linger on Kami's features before it collapsed, crumbling into a broad grin. "Oh, Zhol," she chuckled, patting him gently on the cheek before she turned and walked slowly away, shaking her head slowly. "Thank the gods you're pretty; Khara's snagged herself one gullible lover."

Zhol understood almost none of those words, but he inferred enough to flush bright red once again.

Their tidying efforts continued, items that had been tossed haphazardly into the annex and into vacant stalls over the course of the past year slowly shifted and shuffled and reorganised into some semblance of order, obstructing far less of the annex volume than they previously had. The work was far from done, and the two had already reached the unspoken agreement that it would take more days - and the assistance of the stables' dek workers - to truly finish. They had however shifted enough of the assorted debris to uncover a small mystery that had been tugging at the edges of Zhol's mind for the last bell or so: a strange shape, tucked away in an alcove, covered by a stained and faded sheet of canvas. It was probably nothing; probably boxes, or more broken something or other; but as they'd steadily unearthed their way towards it, Zhol's curiosity hadn't been able to stop growing. Finally, he had his opportunity to sate it, clambering across the last few strewn items, peeling back the fabric -

"Huh."

Whatever Zhol had been expecting, the concealed mystery shape proved to be anything but. "What is it?" Kami asked, not nearly as fascinated by it as Zhol had been.

A frown formed across Zhol's brow as his gaze studied the shape, the carved woodwork, the metal fixings, the slightly perished leather fastenings. "I'm not sure," he admitted, cocking his head to one side, "But I think it's a sleigh."

by **Zhol** on March 12th, 2015, 12:28 am

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The brush in Zhol's hand raked gently through Asfodel's fur, but his attention was barely focused on the task at hand; something a disgruntled snort from the pony seemed to criticise. Zhol couldn't help it though; much as he wanted to give Asfodel his undivided attention, his vision was being constantly drawn to the far side of the stable, where the sleigh - for that was indeed what it was - loomed ominously.

It wasn't a strange thing to find in Wind Reach's stables, he supposed: this was a city imprisoned by snow for large chunks of the year after all, and it made as much sense for a sleigh to be tucked away in the dusty, cobwebbed corners of the Skyhigh Stables than anywhere else in the city. Even so, something about it struck Zhol as odd. Perhaps it was the craftsmanship: he was so used to seeing the crude and simple carts and wagons that Wind Reach used from day to day, hauling ore from the mines, food from the gardens, trade goods from Thunder Bay; perhaps the sleigh, with it's slightly more delicate woodwork, not overly fancy but hardly dull either, was simply different from what Zhol would have expected.

Perhaps it was something else though; perhaps it was the possibilities that drifted through Zhol's wandering mind, visions of he and Khara cosied up within it, wind whipping past their faces as one horse hauled along their open sleigh. He could almost see the adorable pink highlights that would decorate Khara's delicate cheekbones; could almost feel the gentle wind chill on her nose and her lips as she kissed him. He didn't know where they would go; didn't know why they would go; but he wanted to. He wanted it. He wanted those fragmented imaginings to come true.

"You going to stand there brushing that same patch of horse all day?"

Hansi's harsh voice dragged Zhol's absent mind back into his skull, summoned to reinforce his ears in their effort to decipher the stablemaster's words. It was how things always began with Hansi; Nari at first, before a grudging concession into common came to pass. Zhol wasn't sure if his linguistic shortcomings merely slipped Hansi's mind, or if it was a deliberate choice: a single sentence of protest perhaps, or an excuse to draw Zhol's attention with insults he wouldn't comprehend.

"We found it in the annex," he announced; lack of understanding had no bearing if you deftly changed the subject. He gestured with his brush towards the sleigh, just in case it wasn't clear what object Zhol might be referring to.

Hansi let out a grunt. "Good for you," he muttered, not sounding even remotely interested in Zhol's discovery. With a thud, and a jangle of leather, Hansi dumped the saddle he'd been carrying over the edge of one of the stalls, and began to fumble with the straps, tucking them away properly, perhaps hoping that Zhol would disappear if he ignored him long enough.

No such luck, however. "I was hoping I could borrow it," Zhol added casually, letting his brush's attention progress further down Asfodel's flank, the bristles teasing out flecks of moss and dirt from amongst the pony's coarse fur. "Just for a day or so, later in the season?"

"No," Hansi answered immediately, so swiftly and with so little apparent interest that it almost seemed like the stablemaster hadn't paid attention to what Zhol was asking at all. A long silence lingered, Zhol wordlessly waiting for some sort of clarification; it persisted long enough that even Hansi's efforts couldn't ignore it entirely. He sighed, glancing over in Zhol's direction. "You can buy it," he grudgingly offered instead.

Buy? That wasn't the effortless circumstances that Zhol had hoped, but it was better than nothing; the thought of travelling by horse with Khara without the awkwardness and discomfort of a shared horse beneath them appealed to him no end. If anything was worth a few pinions, it was this. "How much?" he asked, trying to sound as off-hand as he could muster.

"Eighteen pinions," was Hansi's casual reply.

Zhol barely contained his surprise. "Eighteen?" he exclaimed, almost sure he must have misheard. "I could buy a new sleigh for that!"

"Then buy one," Hansi shot back, a stern edge in his voice. With Zhol, Hansi, and Kami all members of the Avora caste because of their respective horse-related skills, there was more equality in the stables than there might have been in other aspects of Wind Reach; an equality that made it easy for Zhol to forget his place, and treat everyone - Hansi included - as a peer of equal status. Hansi tolerated it, mostly, but there were times when he felt compelled to remind Zhol of their respective roles; now was one of them. "Or don't. I care very little either way."

Zhol's posture shrank a little, suitably chastened by his employer's brief dressing down. "Does that eighteen include space to store it here in the stables?" he said quietly, wary not to antagonise further, but still determined to haggle at least a little.

"It's here already," Hansi pointed out, gruffly. "If you buy it and leave it here, or if you don't and it stays; it's still going to be here tomorrow either way. Doesn't seem to make much of a difference to me, eh?"

Zhol had to concede to that logic; Hansi was getting a pocket full of pinions for a sleigh he perhaps didn't even realise the stables owned, and aside from a handful of brief absences when Zhol took it out into the wild, it hardly seemed to make a difference if the space it was already taking up continued to be filled; it was a net gain for the stables, or for Hansi, or both.

"Eighteen pinions then," he muttered, mostly to himself, as if he were agreeing to the conclusion of some hard-fought negotiation. He dwelt on thoughts of payment for only a brief moment longer though, his mind already wandering off to wonder just where he might take Khara first.

by **Khara** on April 12th, 2015, 11:59 pm

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Zhol :

Please don't hesitate to PM me if you have any questions/comments regarding your grade. I'll be more than happy to take a second look if you think I've missed something!
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Also, please don't forget to edit your post as 'graded' in the request thread.

Solo A Stable Relationship