Completed [The Bean] Hot Cuppa

[Elann]

Elann made a 'hmm' sound in response to his thoughts on why he asked her and seemed content with the answer. With a steady hand she carried her cup and with her other she happily held the coffee bag. As they made it to the table there was a calm silence as they got situated in their respective seats. He seemed to hold his book dearly and such a rugged looking man like him she contemplated as to whether he was an avid reader or if it was something else. She herself put down her things at the table and shifted over in her seat till she was up against the wall. She didn't want to touch it because it looked fairly dirty, but she got as close to it as she could. She then picked up her coffee and took a little sip of it while he asked about her coming to the city.

Things were still slightly fresh for her and she contemplated how to answer the question. She didn't want to unload, sort of how Garland did on her when they first met, but instead just simply said, "I am starting new here. I am just wandering from place to place, learning things. This culture of yours is very different than ours." She laughed lightly. "We don't have doors." She thought, "We don't have chairs really. They are more close to cushions set high. And we don't have so many people. Unless you were to go to the temple on a festival. THose days are loud and many people. More than here." She nodded and sipped her coffee again. Swallowing she asked him, "Did you grow up here?"

Her calming nature was full of love and sweetness. While not overpoweringly so like someone who was trying to be cute, she was legitimately joyful, full of life, and kind. She may have been out of her element, but with those qualities it probably set her far better off than those on the boat who were old or grumpy all the time.

Other's Words ~~ My Words ~~ My Thoughts

[Asher Claveson]

Asher laughed along with Elann, nodding, "Must've been a really trusting culture to have no doors." The way Elann sat and listened put Asher at ease, more than he had felt for a while. It helped him look back on his past with less melancholy, when she asked if he grew up here. "I've been here ever since I was born." He hesitated before saying a little less certainly, "Been thinking of traveling myself. Maybe next season."

It was still a daunting thought, leaving behind Syliras to travel to Lhavit, his wife's birthplace. He knew he was far from experienced to even attempt such a trek, let alone attempt it by himself. He spent so long saying to himself the very same words he said to Elann. But days turned into weeks, turned into seasons. He kept finding reasons to stay, and they all involved how he was just a common man with no trade to speak of. He was useless, basically. He didn't need to remember his father's tirades to know it to be true.

After drinking some more coffee, Asher commented, "There might be some things that are good to learn, but don't be afraid to display who you really are. Some might tell you it's prudent to follow the crowd, but that never stopped Mey- ah..." He swallowed thickly before putting a more strained smile on his face. "Listen to what your gut tells you you need to do, not to what others might 'suggest'."

[Elann]

A small silent grin spread over the woman's face as he said that it must have been a trusting culture. It really was actually, and while not perfect, they didn't have many problems with thieving. Then again she did live in tents far outside the city of Yahebah, but inside the city, crime was quite common. She commented and said, "Well I am Benshiran, I lived in tents. So we had tent flaps. If you want privacy you have a ..." she didn't know the word usage for saying "screen" so she caved and said in simple terms, " a...wall of cloth. It is fine."

Her cheeks lit up a light bit just a shade of red as she thought back to home. His words however took her from her thoughts, and with a nod, she showed excitement and acceptance for the fact he had stayed here so long. "Oh you are traveling?" she inquired with delight. Such delight even surprised her. She had just traveled halfway around the world and hated every moment of it as she sat for days on end in misery. Was this place so interesting to her to have made her excited for the idea of his travels? She remembered as a girl longing to travel the world and see things, yet what she had gotten did not meet up to her standards in her dreams. Perhaps subconsciously she hoped his travels were not going to have any issue, but then reality set in and she knew that this was a harsh world; full of danger. "Where would you go?"

Her hands moved to play with her fingers along the edge of her coffee cup, flicking off the rim of it lightly with grace. Even such small movements without tipping over the coffee was something her fingers would laugh at if they could. She could tie upwards of ten thousand knots a day with her fingers in making a rug, so they were very used to micro movements. She listened intently to his words and when her brain tried to convert them into Benshiran her fingers slowed to a stop. She was decent at common, but when someone spoke in great quantity, it was a little harder to follow.

His abrupt course correction brought a strange look to her face and she disapprovingly furrowed her eyebrow in attempts to understand where he was going with a word like Mey- ah. He seemed bothered for a moment and then corrected himself. Was this a person he was going to refer to? She was slightly inquisitive now but the pain on his face and lacking want to speak her name, made Elann hesitant to inquire of her.

"I won't be afraid except to get being thrown in the jail. The guards they scare me. Stories I hear and things" she gulped a little herself and seemed authentically fearful of them in general. "But I am still enough of me so that it counts." She wasn't sure if what she had said had clarity to it so she asked, "Make sense?" Sometimes the woman was right on with her words, but still had the feeling she was off.

Other's Words ~~ My Words ~~ My Thoughts

[Asher Claveson]

Asher's smile became more genuine and nodded. "Yes, that makes perfect sense. The guards... they are a little scary. Though I doubt you have anything to worry about, no matter what stories you've heard."

He contemplated her question after his desire to travel, remembering once again how he never truly went after the plans he had set up in his mind. "I guess," he mused, "I've set my eyes on Lhavit. But I don't think I'm skilled enough yet to set out on my own." He shrugged. "Hence the waiting." He sighed before finishing off his coffee.

What did it say about him that this was the first time he spoke with someone without an ulterior motive? There was that thought again, that he'd do things differently tomorrow. Only tomorrow came, and it just felt less exhausting to change his ways. Elann seemed to have a peace about her, something that let him forget for a time all that he had suffered. She didn't expect anything from him, didn't expect a certain decorum that others demanded. It put him at ease, allowed him some space to think more about his life and where he should go.

He hesitated before asking, "What helped you to travel here?"

[Elann]

Quietly the girl nodded to Asher. His insight on the guards made her contemplate if they had just told her stories to put fear in her. However she wouldn't chance it. She could even see in the short time being here how the lacking care of the guards seemed to affect the people. "I went to the welcome center, and the Benshira Representative. They both said the same thing, so I was worried very much. This is better."

She seemed to brighten up a bit after speaking and really did feel a bit more secure. Maybe Garland and his kindness wasn't the singular example, but rather the normal. She figured she might test this out with a random guard. Maybe just ask him a question where to find something and see if he was courteous and kind, or like how she feared they'd be.

As they folded into the discussion of travel she began to see that he really wasn't ready for it. It was still a ways away from the next season when this supposed travel would take place, but she didn't feel that was much time to be getting ready for a journey. "I think you should be much more careful. If you are not ready, then take some more time than one season to get ready. It is very dangerous out there. I hear tales of Yukmen and many other things. And you should go with many many people. Or you could go by ship..." She didn't know exactly where Lhavit was though so she added, "If it is near the sea anyways."

As he asked her "what helped you to travel here", she was puzzled by the question. Did he mean who? Did he mean did she come by boat? Did she seem helpless enough to warrant someones help? She was confused for that brief moment and it showed on her face. She decided to answer by saying, "Well I was to meet a family friend here at the docks, but he is no here." She curses herself in her mind, knowing the word was "not here" but failing at saying so. "So I am alone. Is this what you meant?" she asked curiously while sipping some more of her coffee

Other's Words ~~ My Words ~~ My Thoughts

[Asher Claveson]

He wasn't necessarily disappointed with Elann's answer, but rather disheartened by her advice about traveling. He was having a hard enough time convincing himself without the knowledge that Elann had provided. How was he going to ever be ready? And who would bother to travel with him to Lhavit? He put on a smile anyway, saying, "Not quite what I meant, but don't worry. Just helps to make your previous point: I need to travel with others."

He sighed, scratching idly at his beard before saying, "I want to thank you for the coffee. Not every day do you find someone so generous." He hesitated before continuing, "I hope I'm not keeping you from anything important?"

[Elann]

Elann didn’t understand what the man meant if what she said wasn’t correct. It made her kind of scrunch up because she was so unfamiliar with common that it was rare for her to fully grasp everything that was said. Especially if those things had hidden meanings. She had spoken common for a long time, but it was always in secret. For that reason she had a very basic understanding of it. She could communicate, even speak advanced things in the language, but certain vocab she didn’t know or hidden meanings.

As he thanked her for the coffee she perked up a little from behind her cup, not that she was completely hiding behind it in pain, but merely just a tad more reserved and perhaps a little less self confident of her words. He thanked her and she spoke back with the cup between her mouth and his. “You’re welcome”, she took a sip and then upon lowering the cup the smile slowly returned to her face. If he paid close attention he would notice she took extra care to enunciate her words when thanking him.

“You are not keeping me from anything. The only thing I have to do today is shop for more things I need.” Her words were crisp and very little accent. She shyly asked him with curious eyes, “What do you do for work here in the city?” She knew he had to work, as he was in the city. They didn’t put up with any nonsense like loafers and lazy people. She liked that about this city and it was probably why it was thriving so well. “Do you make books?” she tilted her head up to kind of look toward his lap where he hid the book that was recently tossed into the street before her.

Other's Words ~~ My Words ~~ My Thoughts

[Asher Claveson]

Asher frowned when he saw Elann try to hide behind her cup. Had he said something to offend her, make her feel nervous around him? As she continued speaking, he noted that her accent was not as present, and her words became clipped, as if she was determined to over-enunciate. It struck him, then, that she didn't grow up with the language. Besides the accent, he honestly couldn't tell. She seemed a natural at it; she struck him as someone who was just a natural at everything. It made sense, at least, that she would be nervous if people reminded her that it wasn't her native tongue. Asher himself was not keen when an Inarta sneered at his mispronunciations. Meyarra never sneered, though she would sometimes huff in impatience if he kept stumbling over the same word.

"Do you make books?" Asher started at Elann's question, noting her attempt to get a glimpse at the Book of Letters in his lap. As with any time someone attempted to draw attention to the book, Asher wanted to wrap himself around it, keep it out of the eyes of others. It was irrational to think so, as doing such a thing would only draw more attention to it in addition to criticism for behaving so selfishly. How protecting his only physical remind of his wife was selfish, he couldn't fully grasp. "Eh, no," Asher responded, smiling around his discomfort and fiddling with his empty cup. "No, this is just... just a book. From my wife." Asher panicked and quickly added, "Um. I'm a hunter. Not a great one, but it's a job."

[Elann]

Elann could not deduce much from the man before her. She could see that he was uncomfortable or something. He seemed to hurry around the subject of his wife but did so swiftly. She wasn’t a great deducer so she wasn’t able to figure out what was going on with him. She just knew that something was up with the book.

He mentioned he was a hunter and her mind went to evaluate each hunter she had come across in the past few days. There seemed to be a bit of them in town here. Though with so many people it’s not such a surprise. She then considered what a dangerous job he must have.

“Oh… This sounds very hard.” she still tried to enunciate herself a bit clearer for him, though her accent was creeping back. “I used to love nature. I would go to the water and just sit and stare at the wind through the trees in the Oasis, but now not so much. How do you get over the fear of the things out there?”

There were sadly, too many wild things in this world to really enjoy nature without having a healthy respect for it. You couldn’t go for a long hike without your sword. She had lived a somewhat protected life in the desert where the heat killed most things, and what it didn’t, you fought together as a band or could scare off with a rock. Up here in the rest of the world it was different. In these other parts of the world, things like Yukmen and Dhani thrived. Up here in Syliras it was other monsters though. Yukmen were all over, but Dhani not so much; being as they preferred the swmaps.

She then asked him, "When you were brought up in Syliras, did you ever want to be a knight?"

Other's Words ~~ My Words ~~ My Thoughts

[Asher Claveson]

Asher contemplated Elann's question regarding the creatures out in the wild. He'd always grown up on stories about his father, along with all the Syliran Knights, keeping such dangers away easily. These were tempered with stories about naughty boys getting lost in the forest and gobbled up by a wild beast or something worse. Not that those were used often on him, as his mother was too kind-hearted to spin such tales. As he began hunting, it wasn't a concern at first. He'd learned his mistake very quickly, however. Meyarra was not pleased to hear he'd almost been eaten alive. "Like one of those fool stories," she had yelled in exasperation.

Now, though? Even he could admit that he was rather reckless when he went out hunting. It's not that he wanted to be killed, it's just that... well. He'd do anything to be with his wife again. To hear her voice again. But that wasn't what Elann wanted to hear. She didn't need to bear such a burden, she probably had her own troubles. It was probably difficult to move to a new place, where there was nothing and no one familiar. Yes, she didn't need his baggage. So he smiled, shrugged, and said, "It is challenging, and dangerous, but I rely on my ability to shoot something down before it can touch me. If that doesn't work, then I rely on my legs to carry me very far away very quickly."

Not that his father would have found honor in such tactics. He didn't approve of Asher's preference of the bow over other weapons. Just another reminder that his son wasn't Syliran Knight material. As if Asher hadn't tried since he was a boy to be what his father wanted him to be. Then Elann's question regarding just that came. He sighed gently, tilted his head before replying, "Ever since I was a child. My father was a Knight himself. And in Syliras, if you're born to a Knight, it's assumed you will also be a knight. I always dreamed of fighting alongside my father, conquering the forces of evil." He chuckled at the memory. "Alas, it wasn't meant to be. I didn't appreciate having to obey without question, for I'm far to curious. And I love the bow more than they prefer."

He noted how Elann's accent had slowly returned to her speech, and he contemplated how strange to miss it when it was gone for such a short time. Perhaps it highlighted his interest in the foreign, in things that were not common. Such things made life more enjoyable. He was lacking in the uncommon lately. He asked, "I'm just curious, who taught you Common? Are you like royalty or nobility among the, what was it, Sons of Rapa?" Asher winced at his horrid attempt to pronounce the name. He always was slow to learn languages. Hopefully, Elann's kindness would extend to this, that she'd not take offense to his attempts at trying a word in her language. Even one such as a name.