Difference between revisions of "Logs:Other"

It's windy up on the cliffs, this afternoon, as it always is; windy enough that the summer warmth enjoyed everywhere else is hard to find. That hasn't stopped Rilka from making her way up here, though, navigating trecherous paths to a point where she can sit just short of the precipice, long hair whipping around her, and stare moodily out over the land - and ocean - below. She's drawn her knees up to her chin, holding them in place with her arms, which no doubt goes some distance towards keeping her warm. Warmer, anyway.

It's not obvious when, exactly, Shimana showed up. The woman can be quiet when it suits her, and today must be one of those days. She stands a ways back from the precipice, hands propped on her hips, and doesn't make even so much as a heavy breath. Her gaze too is drawn out over the ocean, though it flicks back and forth in a restless search. Without bothering to look Rilka's way, she abruptly asks in a voice made husky from long turns of shouting over the waves, "What do you see, child?"

It is no secret that Khorde makes a daily pilgrimage through the caves, trekking up those risky paths to stare over the vista. Whatever thoughts float in the boy's mind are his and his alone -- as is this place.. most of the time. This day is different. Those big, dark eyes of his examine first Shimana and Rilka with no outward-facing emotion, ducking his chin in a nod to the former and keeping a wary eye on the latter. He drops to crouch over his ankles, staring out over the archipelago, lips set in a hard line.

Rilka doesn't turn, not even when Shimana speaks to her; she certainly doesn't pay Khorde any attention, though it's probable that she's heard his footsteps. To the older woman, "I saw a boat." Never mind that she wouldn't really know what one looks like, from experience. "I thought Raum's people had come to collect him." She sounds sad for it; sad that the stranger might be going away? Strange that there is, very clearly, no boat at there? It's always hard to know, with Rilka.

"A boat, did you?" Gentle amusement is plain in Shimana's voice. She moves closer towards the girl's perch, squinting vainly out at the horizon. "Has Raum been telling you tales? Did you see anything on your way up, Khorde?" Joints creak and pop as she settles down to the ground, still ceaselessly studying the horizon. "What did your boat look like, Rilka? Was it big enough for all of us?"

"A boat?" Khorde's tenor is incredulous, nigh scoffing. The-- foreign word doesn't sound quite right, as if he hasn't had proper time to consider exactly how you would pronounce it. "You saw a boat?" For all his worldly airs he still instinctively looks to Shimana to read the older woman for her take on it -- in time to intercept her question for him. His shaggy-headed shake of denial is followed by, "No, ma'am," without a trace of surly attitude. He shuts up to listen in, his eyes focusing on the people instead of the bigger world for a change.

Predictably, Rilka doesn't seem concerned by the fact that no one actually believes her. One day, she is /totally/ going to see something, and it'll turn out to be true... but today is not that day. Frowning, she corrects herself, sounding wistful; "I /thought/ I saw a boat. I don't think I'd like it to come here. They'd take us away." This time, she turns to look at her two companions, fastening a wide-eyed stare on them both, in turn. "Raum says they will come for him."

"Well, Raum might have a touch of the sun fever, might'n he child?" Shimana finally breaks her oceanic stare to smile reassuringly at Rilka. "Don't you worry your head, now, about Raum and his boats. Come, tell me: how does the ocean look, today? Do you think we're going to have a good catch?" She beckon Khorde over as well, then gestures out to sea. "Have you both been watching this morning?" The tenor of her voice rises and takes on a hint of the mysterious. "That cloud, do you see?"

Khorde is reluctant, but he does as bidden, rising off of his haunches to move towards Shimana, obediantly looking out to sea. "Choppy to the west," he finally states, voice flat. He breaks his silence in a torrential burst, "Did Raum really say that? Does he really think he's from..." He gestures to the north, a push-off motion that seems to encompass all that is out there rather than a particular cardinal direction. Eyes settle on Rilka: bold, challenging, seeking.

"Do you think there will be rain, later?" Rilka wants to know, fastening her attention upon Shimana with something akin to reverence so obvious in her expression. "The crabs were hiding this morning." Which is, of course, related. She's silent, after that: silent as though she doesn't intend to answer Khorde, or hasn't even heard him. But then, out of nowhere, she tells him, "He says he is from a-- desert. Where there is no ocean. He says he was on a boat, and there was a storm. He says they will come and find him." Beat. "I don't think he likes me very much." She sing-songs the last; she looks smug.

"There's no such place," Shimana speaks assuredly, more than a hint of distrust for Raum entering her voice. "There's no place you can go and not see the ocean in all the world." She makes another expansive gesture, sweeping from north to south in echo of Khorde. "Just ocean. Don't you pay Raum any mind. Now." Back to business! "Those are wise crabs, Rilka. There's a squall due in when the sun's three-fingers off the sea; don't lose track of time, now, either of you. Wouldn't want you swept out for the sea-creatures to nibble on."

"A place where there is no ocean?" Even for Khorde, this comes as a rather... sensationalistic idea. This demonstrates in the disbelief evident within his surprised tenor, eyes seeking the elder woman once more before focusing more inward than out. "He /must/ have the sun poisoning," is muttered more to himself than to the women, in a tone which indicates the cogs in his brain are about to overheat themselves in an effort to grind out an acceptable answer to this conundrum presented. He points to Shimana, as her words seem to vindicate the very air that he breathes. "You'd like that," he finally retorts to Rilka's sing-song, "You..." He lapses silent, sullen, a boy discontent and sulky with it, staring sourly out over the waters.

Insistant, even eager, though it's plain Rilka likes the idea no better than the other two: "He /says/." There's still smugness in her gaze as she gives Khorde a glance - it's a bright spark in her attention, really - but she turns quickly back to Shimana, to listen, and, "I won't. How can you tell, Shimana? Won't you teach me?" Dreamily; "I'd like to be able to call the weather. We could make things perfect for the crabs and the fish, and then there would never be poor catches, no matter what."

"If Raum starts spinning tales again, you come and tell me right away, won't you Rilka? There's too much to do for him to be wasting your time with nonsense." Shimana scrapes a hand across the rocky ground, toying with the sand as though testing its feel. "The weather isn't an errant child to be called when you want. You have to feel it, bargain with it. I think you'd have a talent for reading the skies, child, if only you stop listening to tales. Come now, Khorde: have you been down by the river? Did you see if they were making ready for the blow tonight?"

"I'm sure he thinks that," Khor challenges Rilka, "But what a person /thinks/ and what is /real/ are two /very/ different things." Caught between a man and a boy, striving for maturity, he works to inform the girl by putting over-the-top emphasis on every few words. It may come off as the opposite. Damn hormones causing his voice to break on 'very'... that was embarassing. He reddens and turns to Shimana, his shoulders hunching as he wraps his arms around himself as if to ward off sudden cold. "They were tying down. Everyone knows a storm's coming." He'd probably say it even if it wasn't true.

"He /does/ come from Elsewhere," points out Rilka, meaningfully. "None of us have ever been Elsewhere." It probably isn't even intentional, but the glance she aims at Khorde holds an expression that is suspiciously close to a smirk. His voice broke: hah. Much more interesting, though, is what Shimana has to say: "I will," she promises, faithfully. "I'll tell you. I will try and stop listening to tales, I truly will." Because it's like she blossoms under the attention: it can't be easy being dismissed as strange, all the time, and not /useful/.

If anyone in the settlement has a tolerance for the strange, well, it'd be Shimana. She squints at the horizon again, predominantly at a tiny smudge of darkness. "Good, Khorde. I'm glad we can count on you. Such a good, reliable boy." It doesn't actually sound much like praise, with the emphasis she puts on 'reliable', but it's not precisely an insult, either. "If you like," she adds for Rilka, indulgently, "You can come to me for lessons when your chores are finished. Faranth knows that daughter of mine hasn't got the head for reading the sky. If you promise to pay close, quiet attention."

If anyone in the settlement has a tolerance for the strange, well, it'd be Shimana. She squints at the horizon again, predominantly at a tiny smudge of darkness. "Good, Khorde. I'm glad we can count on you. Such a good, reliable boy." It doesn't actually sound much like praise, with the emphasis she puts on 'reliable', but it's not precisely an insult, either. "If you like," she adds for Rilka, indulgently, "You can come to me for lessons when your chores are finished. Faranth knows that daughter of mine hasn't got the head for reading the sky. If you promise to pay close, quiet attention."

If anything, the fact that Rilka is /right/ on one fundamental line of thought: Raum is Other-- that only makes the perpetual sulk /worse/. With Shimana's statement, it only /further/ worsens, the boy dropping back down into that crouch, expression like a wet bird with ruffled feathers. He mutters something unintell...igent? ...igible, under his breath, and glowers off into the distance, offended. "But where?" he finally asks, still rather stuck on the mess that Raum has made of the settlement. "Where could he even be /from/?" All the world can be seen, of course, from up here-- or so young minds would think.

This is probably the most engaged Rilka has been in a long time. She's sitting up straight, now, and shifts her position so that she can look at Shimana more comfortably. It's a small thing, really, but telling nonetheless. Her words could even be described as earnest: "I will, Shimana. I will watch. The skies will tell me things, too." Like the crabs. Evidently, this success makes her indulgent of Khorde, too, because she looks at him directly, and not at all through him, when she adds, "There must be Other. Perhaps there could be these deserts. And other terrible things. Or perhaps he is here to check up on us. We weren't always here, after all." Even if it's distant history - even if half the settlement is convinced those stories are legends, not truth. Even if the other half believe them wholeheartedly: Blood, you know.

Done with the day's chores, and with the teaching of todays lessons to the littles... Emmeline finds herself climbing up to the cliffs. There's a brief expression of surprise, and maybe a bit of disappointment, when it seems there's such a crowd there. But it fades quickly and she offers the little gathering a bright smile. "Hello, everyone." Talk of the skies and what hey can teach catches her ear and her head nocks a little to the side in curiousity .

"It doesn't matter where he's from, except that his Elsewhere is likely another island, just like this one. Everything else he's telling you is false." Shimana is assured in her worldview, at least: he is Other, not to be trusted. The world is rock-and-ocean-and-sky, and nothing else. "Likely he just drifted here, like the wood that comes ashore sometimes. Wet and rotted, and good only to be burned." Er. Certainly she's not implying anything of the sort for Raum? She's distracted from her study by Emmaline, though she doesn't register any surprise. Rather, she twists to peer over her shoulder at the young woman and offers a warm smile. "Emmaline. Welcome. Have you come to read the sky as well? There's a blow coming, this evening."

Once more falling inward, face set dour, Khorde stares off into the distance. Shimana's dictate evokes a smug smile of his own, and a 'ha, /there/!' kind of glance to Rilka, before Emmeline's arrival sparks another duck of his head in a weird kind of nod. He's kind of awkward. It's kind of his thing. He's distracted by Raum's parallelism to rotten wood, staring openmouthed at Shimana for what she says. He's not about to actually counter her, of course, but it's still surprising to hear someone /say/ it.

Rilka is too wide-eyed, too intrigued, by what Shimana has to say to obviously greet Emmeline (or possibly, she's still unhappy with having to deal with the children, not so many days ago; it's always hard to tell). "He said I should have been drowned at birth," she reports, apparently unconcerned by the idea. "I told him we don't kill children." Adults? Well. She hasn't said /anything/ about that. "I wonder how they have wood. We don't have wood; all gone!" Thread is, it's true, rather merciless to trees.

"Wet and rotting wood. That seems about right for his personality." Emme quips, smiling over at the older woman when she hears the words. "I really just came to admire the sly. Though I guess if there's a blow coming I won't be able to do so for long." And it becomes quickly apparent that she was not present when Raum said what he did to Rilka, because the young woman's expression goes from serene to outright anger within only a few seconds. "He said /what/!?" she fumes. "That's.. that is simply uncalled for. You just wait till I see him again. I'll give him a piece of *my* mind, oh yes I will. How dare he!" Oh dear, this doesn't bode well.

"He did, did he?" There's finally an emotion out of Shimana that isn't calm assurance; she's clearly angry now. "We'll just have to have a word with him. A strong word." The older woman ponderously gets to her feet and puts a pace of distance between herself and the young exiles. "I'll take care of it, Emmeline. Don't you worry your head over it. He's just - Other. He'll learn his place." Threat is implicit in the steelyness of her voice. "He /will/ learn." She slips back into her normal husky tones with an effort. "None of you children worry, now. The more you listen to him, the more power you give him. Just ignore him, and let your elders do what we do."

Khorde has a sudden look about him, deer-caught-in-the-headlights; angry woman in close vicinity! Perhaps he's just coming to the realization that he's the only dude up here, and that could change with one strategic push of feminine hands. He ducks his head in something approximating a good-bye, and shuffles awkward to his feet, moving skittish to the path as a fish evading a net... or a nonBlood moving off from those egotistical ba... ahem. It takes only a second for him to shift out of sight on the paths leading below, surprisingly fleet of foot for such a gangly boy.

Rilka's gaze follows Khorde. "He's afraid of us," she remarks, idly; her expression has gone vague again, and now, she's settling back down in her earlier position, facing out towards the sea. "He needs to adjust. He's used to Elsewhere." She's obviously not talking about Khorde anymore. "We're different. He's new blood, though. Someone will have to marry him, and make him part of the community."

Emmeline calms considerably when Shimana takes the matter into her own hands, and inclines her head respectfully. "Very well. But I really would like to give him a piece of my mind for being an insensitive lout." she points out, looking up at the sky then so she can avert her gaze. "-I- will certainly not be volunteering for that duty." Mention of Khorde being afraid of them, now that makes her laugh. "I think that's a boy thing in general, isn't it? Groups of annoyed women are to be avoided at all costs."

"It /is/ a boy thing, I think. Poor thing. Ah well, we'll set him to some harder work, find him a girl, and he'll settle down in no time." Shimana looks from one girl to the other, eyebrow raised as if considering. "I don't suppose either of you are volunteering for the job? Khorde is a good lad, and he needs a good wife. Unlike Raum." Rilka gets a sharp look for her thought, and a stern, "No more Raum. You have more than enough to worry your head over, Rilka, without asking for more troubles. And he /is/ trouble."

"I don't think I'm supposed to marry," says Rilka, calmly. She probably isn't supposed to know that she's considered, by this stage, to be Bad Blood based on her own nature, not to mention family history. But-- she obviously does. "Emmeline could have him. Or Iolene. I suppose it depends on the blood, though, doesn't it. Devaki would know." At least she does leave Raum alone, abandoning the thought in order to concentrate more closely on the skyline.

"Well now, Khorde is another matter entirely. He's awkward, but in a cute way." Emme declares, as if she's some sort of expert on the matter. "But you're right about Raum. No more of that." Shaking off her unease, she takes a deep breath of ocean-tinted air. "I can feel the storm fathering now. It's in the air, don't you think?" She steers clear of matters of blood, for some reason.

A shrewd gaze fixes on Rilka, studying the girl and her apparent self-awareness carefully. "You can marry if you like, Rilka. Nobody will stop you." Tactful sidestepping around the lack of men who might be /interested/. "Did Devaki tell you that?" Emmeline's train of thought pulls at Shimana, strong and irrestistable. "It is in the air," she nods approvingly, "You can feel it all around us. I asked the ocean for speed in harvest, today; hopefully the fools at the nets took advantage. It won't be /my/ fault if we're short at supper today."

"No, not Devaki," promises Rilka, which is nice of her, even if it is true. "I don't believe I shall marry, all the same." She's standing up, now, stretching out her legs that have been so still for so long. She spins, instead, though it's just barely fast enough to be called that: her arms are raised, and she seems to be rather enjoying the buffetting winds, the weight of the encroaching storm. At least she's careful not to be standing too near the edge. "The fish will be hungry, tomorrow. Perhaps we'll catch hundreds, then. But only if we can eat them all."

"Don't close any doors yet, Rilka. You never know... right?" There may just besomeone for her. But Emme tends to be an optimist that way. "Indeed, it won't be your fault if we're short at supper. Which reminds me that I should work the field a bit more before going to bed for the night." she muses, stretching sore and tired muscles. "We need some variety from all the seaweed." Blech!

"Would you know what to do with hundreds of fish, little Rilka? However would we salt them all?" Shimana teases, gently, to the slowly-revolving girl. "After chores, tomorrow. Come and see me, if we haven't caught hundreds of fish, alright?" To Emmeline, the older woman can only offer a tsk-ing scold. "Seaweed kept your parents alive, and it'll keep you alive. You know better than to make light of the ocean's gift to us. You never know when she might take it away."

"I remember when the Thread came back and ruined all the crops we'd planted." Rilka would have been seven when the Comet Pass started, so it's not surprising that it looms heavily in her mind. She even stops spinning to look at the other two. "And then it was all seaweed again, and we were frightened." She does, however, incline her head firmly to confirm Shimana's words. She'll be there.

"Yes Shimana." Emme is quick to be apologetic. "Time for me to get back to work, I think. This was a lovely break though. See you all at dinner!" Proferring both of the other ladies with a wave, the slim loking girl begins to make her way down off of the cliff top and through the caves.

"Farewell, child. Don't forget to remind them of the storm. Clear skies!" Coming from Shimana, it sounds rather like a benediction instead of a standard parting statement. "Come, Rilka," she gestures towards the other girl. "I feel it's time to head down, myself. Will you join me, or are you going to continue to be our lookout? I'd like to ask you what you see, if you're feeling up to it dear."

Rilka hesitates, her gaze shifting visibly from the storm on the horizon, to Shimana. "I will stay a time longer," she decides, at length. "I will watch the storm. But I will come down before it arrives." Because not doing so would, clearly, be suicide. "Just a little while longer, Shimana. I want to see how it moves."