[Memory] Learning From the River [Fishbones]

[Hilana Chenzira]

Searing 5, Year 106

[Memory]
[Closed - Fishbones]

Hilana was bored.

She didn’t want to be here, she would rather have been out at the herding grounds that was such a camel ride away. But she was back in Tertium, back at the family home that she didn’t like, and she did not want to be here. Asher had told her she just had to tough it out, be bored, smile, and try to contain herself and her energy for a few days until she could come back home. But that was asking a great deal from a five year old, even if she was turning six next season. Still, it was her Aunt Sarala’s birthday, and so appearances had to be made. Everyone had to do things they didn’t like, after all, didn’t they?

The servii were busily decorating for the party, endless amounts of food was being prepared, and there was so much fussing over her. She had been bathed twice since she had arrived in the late afternoon yesterday, and her curls were everywhere. Combed and bound with cloths to set them, and Sarala was surely cursing herself for cutting the girl’s hair before she had gone to the herding boys. Because while it was nearly down to her mid-back again, if she hadn’t cut it, it would have been that much longer and easier to just trim and style, as the weight helped keep her hair from going crazy when it got wet. But such as it was, her impossible curls were set and her hair braided with green, blue, and white ribbons, the smaller braids woven into a much larger one. Those ribbons matched the outfit that she had been dressed in: a navy-blue sleeveless cotton shirt that was laced up from behind with a beaded flower stitched onto the front with brightly-coloured glass beads, and a blue-green ombre skirt that was striped on the diagonal with white. Her father knew she was going to get into the dirt, and since she had had to wear the more ornate clothing yesterday for Sarala’s birthday, it seemed more sensible to let her wear something she could at least damage. And if she didn’t damage it, she could take it back to the herds with her.

As it was, the girl had left the gardens, and had trekked down towards the shores of the Vasta River Delta, her sandals leaving faint footprints to indicate her whereabouts. She had been following a rather large beetle, curious to see where it went. She didn’t want to pick it up - she knew that the brighter colours meant it could sting her and it would hurt, but Hilana wanted to know where it was going. And, of course, once she hit the banks, it vanished into the grasses and reeds. Hmmm. She began to poke one of the reeds, shaking it to see if anything else could come out. Decisions, decisions! "Beetle, beetle, beetle," the girl crooned. "Where did you go? Bee-bee-bee-beetle..."

[Fishbones]

Selákhos was deep in the silt of the Vasta River Delta, further inland than he often swam. The shallow-ish water was deceptive, and every step led him almost knee-high in sand and mud. Only his eyes and forehead were peaking from the water, the gills at his ribcage hard at work, when he heard a voice carry through the water. He looked at the small river turtle in his hands, swimming helplessly and unmoving, and he angled his ear out of the water to get a sound ungarbled.

Sounded like another kid. She wasn't going to find a beetle anywhere in the reeds, but... Fishbones slipped through the mud and water quietly, like he'd been taught to not scare the fish and turtles and frogs and bugs. The buzzing of dragonflies and mosquitos and the sound of water rushing in the deeper parts hid his approach, until he peeked his head through the reeds with a sharp-toothed smile.

The turtle in his hands was thrust through the reeds shortly after his face, presented just below his chin with both hands.

"It's a baby softshell turtle." He announced proudly. His hair was long and wet and clung to his shoulders and face and neck, black in the dark but shimmering with reds and oranges and greens. His skin was tinted green, too, and his webbed fingers and sharp teeth and big yellow eyes made him look absolutely strange, and he was barely dressed compared to little Hilana, with a simple cloth wrapped around his waist and tied around the tops of his thighs.

He held the turtle towards the little girl. It had shrunk into its shell, as brown and muddy-looking as the river he was standing in.

"I'm Selákhos. What's your name?" His Vastian was easy and natural, placing his locale firmly in Tertium if little Hilana had an ear for accents.

[Hilana Chenzira]

Hilana didn’t hear him until he announced himself, especially with the way he had used the natural sounds of the river to his advantage. The little girl had also been busy looking for that colourful beetle that had been able to shake its pursuer, especially with another distraction. Small hands hiked her skirt, while she was less concerned about her laced-up sandals getting dirty and muddy in the reedy banks. While she was keeping an eye out for snakes that might well have migrated along the water, as there was the occasional species that liked toads and frogs and small fish, that was hardly part of her focus. But if she’d found one? So much the better!

“It’s so cute!” the Vastiana gushed when he introduced the turtle, and she dropped her skirts to reach out to touch it, peering at it and getting quite close. She knew that as an adult it would be much bigger, but the little baby turtle pleased her, with its pointed nose. “Did you catch it? Where did you find it? Are there lots of them in the water? Is it your pet? Did you name it? Is it a boy or a girl?” she wanted to know. It was only after the turtle had gotten its full inspection, from its nose to its eyes to its shell to its claws did Hilana realize that the child who had presented his prize to her was not Vastii like she was, and those enormous brown eyes looked him over too with the same fascination that the turtle had been studied.

“Hello, Selákhos,” she greeted him. “I am Hilana. Matsi Chenzira Hilana. Do you live in Tertium? What are you? Where are you from?” She knew that Tertium had a lot of peregrini, and perhaps this was one of them. But she’d never seen anything quite like the Rathari. “Is your skin always like that? How come your teeth are so pointy? Does it make it easier to eat? Do you swim a lot? Have you ever seen the big purussaurs?” she extended her hands out as far as her arms could reach as if to indicate the gargantuan crocodilians that lived in the Vasta between Tertium and Solunarium Proper. The girl’s mouth clearly moved at a hundred miles a minute, because she had so many questions for the Rathari. She may have bombarded him with a dozen within a minute, but she clearly was not done with him. She closed the distance between them, beaming a sunny smile at him. “Can I call you Selá?”

[Talisman]

Review

Name: Hilana Chenzira

XP: 10 Points, No Magic
Injuries/Ailments: None
Loot: None

Notes: Thread abandoned.