Interaction with the Indigenous Population
(or, "Meeting the Natives")
Thin streams of smoke wafted up from the twin sticks
of incense, filling the room with a heavy, sweet
herbal scent. It was from this perfumed air that Marduk
drew breath, clearing his mind as he
reopened his eyes. The visions were clearer now, dancing
at the edge of his thoughts even after he surfaced from swimming
through the depths of meditation. He was troubled by what he saw.
Gathering forces, tangling threads of fated lives...
a drop of oil spreading slowly across the surface of
the lake that was his consciousness, coating his
perception with a thin, foreign film.
He was unsure of what he had seen, but it did not bode well.
Dangerous and unknown
currents beyond his control were flickering into life at the edges
of his vision. Stray
candle flames, separated from any discernible wick, but
burning none the less brightly, set the cobwebs in the
darkest corners of his mind aflame.
He had to find them. He turned to one of the attendants
standing at his side, waving a hand before the servant's
eyes to break the glazed stare of oblivious contentment
creasing his face.
"Send for our Sister Tsuraine." Marduk directedin a calm, even
tone, the words curling through the chamber with
a calming effluence akin to that of the scented
smoke. The nameless creature bowed its head briefly and
shuffled into the darkness of the corridor beyond,
vanishing.
The inner sanctum of the temple fell utterly and
oppressively silent, the single robed attendant staring out into
the room but focusing on nothing. Marduk paid him no mind.
Something seems... familiar, this time, he thought to
himself, eyes fixed on the flame from a nearby brazier,
lighting his pupils with tongues of fire. Despite his ponderance,
his eyes betrated no gleam other than that of the outside flame.
Perhaps Time has granted Them capabilities beyond what you thought
possible...
No. No, they are nothing. They came from nothing. They
will return to nothing. Each life alone is nothing.
Ah, then..... what is this pull on the fabric of the
world? Each string on its own may break, but the weave
itself...It is too large to ignore.
They are nothing. Dust. They must continue to be as such -
nothing.
The balance is shifting.
Stop it.
But what-
"You called for me, Master?"
Marduk paused, eyes focusing again upon the world, and beheld
the expectant face of his follower. Tsuraine stood
in the doorway, her small blond child in tow, one hand
clinging nervously to her skirts.
"Ah, you're here. Excellent." He favored the pair of them
with a warm smile, the earlier reflection of flames within his
eyes quite absent now, though no natural warmth replaced them.
He rose from his kneeling position to converse with
them properly. "I hope I find you both well this night..." He glanced
down at the shy boy, acknowledging his presence with a benevolent
nod, hoping to set the nervous child at ease.
"Thasen, you've grown so quickly, I can hardly keep
track any more."
The boy could only nod, wide-eyed.
The prophet suppressed a soft chuckle. "If you hold
out your hands, I'll give you a present," he offered, and the child
struggled with the decision for a split second before carefully
extending both hands, a shy, hopeful smile curling the corners of
his mouth. Tsuraine looked on as the prophet Marduk made a
subtle gesture with long, elegant hands, and a soft, grey bundle of
feathers appeared, nestled comfortably in Thasen's palms. It gave a
rustle and a soft
chirp, lifting its head to reveal itself as a live dove,
apparently conjured out of nothingness, but real and perfect in every
detail. It
blinked with beady black eyes up at Thasen, as calm as
if it had been hand-raised from the day it hatched
from its egg.
Marduk's gaze flickered back to Tsuraine, some of the mirth
seeping away from his expression. "Something on the surface side has
come to my attention, sister. I have seen it in my visions. Somewhere
just north of the desert... I know not what it is, precisely, but I
see that it will bring great disaster upon us and our
cause if it is left unchecked. If you are
willing, I would like you to investigate this eruption of new power.
Perhaps our resolve is being tested. I should imagine you will know
it when you see it."
He glanced down at the small boy again, as Thasen was
tentatively stroking the bird's feathers with careful
movements. "As always," the Prophet continued, "Your
personal skill in guiding the Lost to us would be
greatly appreciated, as you will, no doubt, encounter
them along your way."
"Of course, my master. Thy will shall be done. I will return to you with news
of this...disruption." Tsuraine bowed in deep respect. Thasen hurriedly
copied his mother's motion, then peeked up at the dove again.
A smile was beginning to creep across Thasen's face. "It's pretty," he
murmured to his mother. Tsuraine smiled back at him.
"Come on, we're going on a trip," she said once they'd left the inner sanctum.
"Lord Marduk has a very important job for us. It could be dangerous, so I want
you to stay close to me at all times, do you understand."
"Of course," Thasen said, nodding emphatically. "More important than helping
people find the way?"
"He says he senses a threat," Tsuraine explained. "Something might be rising
up against the divine cause, and we've got to find out what it is before
something bad happens." She tried to explain things in terms a six-year-old
would understand, while she tried to understand it herself. How could
anyone--or anything--present a threat to Lord Marduk?
Thasen clutched Tsuraine's robes tightly. "Why would they want to do that?" he
wondered softly.
"I don't know, Thasen," Tsuraine replied. "There are some bad people in the
world. But have no fear, child, I'll always be with you."
Tsuraine and her son were always ready to travel, and they set forth for the
area to where Marduk had pointed them.
***
Shasa tapped her foot impatiently, rolling her eyes in an exaggerated sweep
toward the west, where the setting sun shrouded the sky with translucent robes
of orange and scarlet. She shifted the expanse of folded cloth from one
shoulder to the other, finally losing what nominal patience she possessed. She
had long since explained herself to the elders of her tribe, primarily
insisting that they not die without her, and secondarily insisting that shewould eat sand before she would take a camel. Now, she was ready to begin the
journey
toward the mountains. She was no more willing to wait on Pela than she was
willing to wait for her tribe.
"Pelagia. Move those ponytails. We need an early start. The night won't last
forever, and I promise you, you don't want to travel during the day."
Pela looked up, her large eyes lit up with desperation. "... but Shasa?"
She was surrounded by tiny children, most of whom were clinging to her
leggings, tunic, or in some cases, her hair.
"Don't go!" One of the children pleaded, bouncing up and down to convey to Pela
his consternation. "Pela, don't go! You should stay here with us!"
"Yes!" another child agreed. "Tell us another story."
"EVIL DEMON SPAWN, BEGONE!" Shasa bellowed, stalking forward to swing at the
oldest with her staff. "Move! MOVE! We have to go! You will see Pela again
later! GO GO GO!"
The children scattered before Shasa's wrath, disappearing beneath the drapery
of tents, or behind parents.
"Shasa!" Pela gasped, scandalized. "They're only children."
Shasa merely grunted, mock-lunging toward one of the braver children; she
obviously had no qualms about bonking him silly.
"All right! All right!" Pela conceded, gathering her belongings from about her
feet, where she had dropped them in order to hug each child, or at the least,
pat them on the head. "See? I'm coming. We're going. Leave them be." She slung
her bundle over one shoulder, then blinked at the expanse of cloth Shasa was
carrying.
"What's that?"
The desert girl raised an eyebrow, her narrowed eyes clearly conveying that she
believed Pelagia had lost her mind.
"Pela. It's a tent. Well... a lean-to, really. It takes a two nights to get to
the mountains. Do you want to sleep unsheltered in the sun during the day?"
Pelagia considered, tilting her head to one side. Two tails of her hair brushed
the ground as she did so, inspiring Shasa to stifle further solicitations for
her to sell it.
"No."
"There you have it." Shasa answered. "Off we go, then."
She raised a hand in salute to the members of her tribe that were watching,
then began yelling last-minute instructions. Pelagia, for her part, tried to
make eye contact with each child, most of whom were standing upon their toes to
wave to her. She winced as Shasa's voice boomed suddenly directly beside her
ear.
"Remember, DON'T LEAVE THE USUAL WAY. I showed you the way, so FOLLOW IT, and
make sure you DON'T DROP DEAD WITHOUT ME! ... and polish that bug stuff REALLY
GOOD or it won't SELL FOR AS MUCH!"
Pelagia had a sudden desire to lengthen her stride. If they didn't get out of
sight of Shasa's tribe soon, she reasoned, the desert girl might just deafen
them all.
Only a few minutes out into the broad expanse of sand dunes, the same horrible
sensations that had gotten Pelagia so lost in the first place started nagging
at her again. They had left sight of the camp, and even the strange and thorny
not-quite-trees - the cacti, as Shasa had called them - were dotting the
landscape less and less frequently. Pela found herself fixing her eyes intently
on her own feet and huddling close to her compansion so she wouldn't have to
see the horrible expanse of shadowy nothingness out in front of them. As they
made their way over a particularly flat and desolate-looking part of the land,
she walked so close that she accidentally jostled the girl as she was in
mid-sentence.
"And so I told him, 'Abdul, you must think me a *complete* fool'- hey!" Shasa
sidestepped a bit, planting her staff in the sands to steady herself. "What is
the matter with you? We have whole desert to walk on, go a few steps that way."
She pointed as she spoke.
Pelagia suddenly looked up again, face slightly reddened. "Sorry! I wasn't
paying attention, sorry..." she resumed her pace, head down and eyes on her
feet.
Shasa frowned. "You know, it would help if you would look where you're going."
"I am looking!" Pela replied with a little smile and forced lilt of
cheerfulness. This was not one of her better attempts to lie about something,
and it showed all too well. But it was all she could do not to grab that
makeshift tent off Shasa's back and wrap herself in the cloth at this point -
anything that acted as a shield between her and that huge empty sky would be a
blessing.
Shasa made a small, disagreeable noise at the back of her throat as they
continued on at a slightly slower pace. "You are *not*. It is simple, you just
lift your head up and look that way instead of finding your own toes so
interesting."
Pela clenched her teeth together firmly and glanced up, taking in the sight of
her desert companion looking back at her expectantly, but also that same huge
and terrifying nothing spreading out identically in all directions behind her.
She suddenly felt ill and had to close her eyes. "I'm just feeling a little
sick," she said, her voice tiny. "It's easier if I just keep my head down."
Shasa's eyebrow quirked. "You want to stop for a while?" something in her voice
told Pela that while she was *trying* to be hospitable, Shasa would personally
rather sleep next to a rancid camel than stop early and lose time on their
journey.
Pela shook her head quickly, "N-no, let's not waste time, I'll be all right."
She looked over to the shorter girl briefly and stifled a grin. "Besides, I bet
your short little legs will get tired out before mine."
"*What*!?" Shasa looked indignant for all of two seconds, before Pela finally
broke down and started laughing, breaking the pretense of seriously insulting
her. Before long they were both giggling like girls half their ages and
pretending to scuffle by exchanging little shoves as they walked. For a while,
Pelagia was able to completely forget about the open space all around that
frightened her so.
*******
By the time dawn was approaching after the first full night of travel, the two
girls found themselves gradually passing from purely sanded desert land into a
place with more scrub brush here and there, and even patches of very coarse,
brownish grass. It grew in fat clumps, but never in dense enough patches to
make it worth walking on for cushioning their tired feet. Pela began to wonder
if the camels were really such a bad idea, and had asked Shasa about it during
one of their rather infrequent rest stops.
"Trust me, if the desert air has been making you feel unwell, sea-girl," Shasa
had said with a decidedly authoritative tone, "The smell and the jostling those
beasts give you would make it twice as bad."
Pela recalled her very brief encounter with one of the alien-looking pack
animals during her stay with the Desert Nomads, and had no choice but to agree.
As the early morning light spread over the sky after the second night, Pela
discovered that they had travelled almost entirely out of the desert without
her noticing - between the darkness obscuring all but their closest
surroundings and her inability to look out at the horizon for more than a
moment, she hadn't seen how the plant life was starting to crowd in on what had
once been nothing but sand, and even that was slowly turning back to the earth
she was accustomed to. For a moment she wondered if they had actually doubled
back towards her homeland, but closer inspection of the gently rolling hills
around them revealed that this was still far from any place she had ever been.
"Are we close now, do you think?" Pela asked.
Shasa nodded. "We made better time than I expected, we are almost completely
into the grasslands now. But that also means there will be other travellers.
Can you go on a bit after sunrise? We would do well to find a less obvious
place to rest."
Pela blinked. "We're hiding?"
Shasa got that look of narrowed eyes again, the one that she often did when she
believed Pela was as naive as the day she was born. "Yes we're hiding! If we
camp and make a fire here we may as well start yelling for the theives to
invite themselves over!"
"Thieves..." Pelagia murmured to herself. She'd heard from her parents that
there were evil people roaming the world outside, people who either had no fear
of the laws or had no laws to begin with. "Do you think we'll run into any out
here?" She gripped the hilt of her knife uneasily.
Shasa started to open her mouth and respond, when a strange sound broke the
calm that had been hanging in the air. Several voices, loud and aggressive,
were carried on the breeze from over the next big hill. "Something's going on
down there, we'd better get out of here before it comes this way," Shasa said,
straining to hear what the voices were yelling, as it was all just a jumble of
unintelligible shouting and jeering from where they stood.
Pela was about to agree, when a very distinct voice, slightly higher in pitch
and laced heavily with a strangely melodious accent cried out over the others.
It was so foreign and rapid, in fact, Pela had a hard time making out the words
at first.
"Gentlemen, I assure you! I have nothing of value, please allow me to be on my
way!"
She turned sharply to look over at Shasa, who grumbled and cast her eyes
skyward. "Sounds like someone ran into trouble before we did, come on.." She
gripped her diviner's rod firmly and broke into a quick stride to clear the
hill that blocked their view.
Pela caught up with her quickly, and flashed her a smile despite her fluttering
nerves. "Don't worry, I don't think anything could be as bad as the giant
sand-bug."
Shasa chuckled dryly, and in a few moments they were almost over the hill.
Indalecio had been having a really bad couple of days. It was just his
luck that the transport from Atlantis set him down smack dab in the middle
of nowhere. He'd been wandering aimlessly for what seemed like an eternity
before finally finding a road. It was a rather primitive path of dirt
packed down by years of use, but he figured that if he followed it, it would
eventually take him somewhere. It sure beat walking in circles, at any
rate. Hopefully the path would lead to a town of some sort, where he could
find a place to stay. Indalecio knew better than to expect any sort of
quality lodging, but hopefully he could find a decent and at least
moderately clean inn. If he was truly lucky, it might even have baths.
He'd been on the road for two days now, and he was quite sure that he must
stink to high heaven by now. In fact, now that he thought about it,
something did smell rather rancid.
"You really shouldn't be traveling alone out here. These roads are full of
bandits you know," the rough voice, followed by raucous laughter jolted
Indalecio out of his reverie. He looked up to find two men, obviously the
source of the rancid smell, blocking in the road in front of him. Though
nearly a hand shorter than himself, they had a great deal more bulk on them. Indalecio cast about for an escape route, only to discover a third guy
standing in the road behind him.
The first bandit spoke up again,"As you can see, there's no escape, so just
hand over your money easy like and we promise not to hurt'cha." The man's
rough and primitive accent made it difficult for Indalecio to follow him,
but the intend was clear enough.
"Gentlemen, please. I'm simply a traveling scholar. I have nothing at all
aside from ink and parchment. Certainly nothing that would interest you,"
Indalecio swallowed nervously, and took a step backwards.
The man behind him, the smallest of the three, stopped Indalecio's retreat
and fingered his jacket. "Look boss, it's silk! With clothes like these he
must be a noble of some sort, or a at least a merchant's son."
Indalecio jerked his coat back from the bandit's greasy hands. "A noble?
Now look here, I'm nothing more than a scribe. Gentlemen, I assure you! I
have nothing of value, please allow me to be on my way!" Indalecio's voice
rose in panic, and he tried to make a break for it, but one of the men
quickly caught him by the arm and jerked him back around.
"Nothing of value eh? We'll be the judge of that. Now what's this you
have here...?" Noticing the large bulge beneath Indalecio's vest, the man
quickly reached inside and pulled out the green fluorite cube that the
scribe wore on a chain around his neck. "Well look at this! A crystal this
large would bring a hefty profit indeed!"
Indalecio's eyes widened as the bandit drew the green stone from his vest.
"No, you can't take that! It's important!" Indalecio started to grab at
the stone when a sudden light flashed from deep within it, nearly blinding
him. The bandit dropped the stone with a curse and clutched at his hand,
which had been badly burned where it had touched the stone.
"Faugh, witchcraft!" The bandit spat on the ground beside him, then
motioned towards Indalecio with his head. "Don't just stand there you
morons, get him!" The two men hastened to obey their leader, and advanced
on Indalecio who simply stood and stared at the stone, completely
dumbfounded. Before they could reach him though, a high, clear voice
sounded from the top of a nearby hill and made them stop in their tracks.
"Hey! Don't you know it's not nice to pick on helpless travelers! Why
don't you pick on someone your own size!"
Moments earlier, a vastly different sort of conversation had
occurred atop the hill. Upon reaching the crest of the incline, both
Pelagia and Shasa had momentarily frozen with surprise, albiet for
different reasons. Pelagia, who remained dubious about the existence of
people who would, without any compelling reason, strip another person of
his or her possessions. Shasa's reaction, on the other hand, was much
like that of the bandits, although she wondered why a wealthy merchant
would be fool enough to wander this route alone.
"Shasa! They're going to hurt that man! We have to help him!"
Pelagia decided, almost at once.
"I don't know," Shasa waffled. "Sometimes it really isn't best to
annoy these bandits. Most of them have connections that can b... ow!"
Pelagia, who had been about to wax poetic of the virtues of helping
others forthe sake of kindness itself, blinked. Shasa was vigorously
shaking her hand, simultaneously exhaling a steady stream of breath upon
the palm.
"It bit me!" she explained, indicating the stone dangling from her
staff. "That thing /bit me./"
She was exaggerating; the stone hadn't bitten her, nor had it harmed
her enough to require the vigorous shaking and cooling to which she was
subjecting it. The sensation she recieved from the stone hadn't truly
even been pain; it had merely been reminding her of its presence. If she
had thought it possible, she would have said that the stone disapproved
of her suggestion to remain uninvolved.
"Never mind that, Shasa," Pelagia insisted, her voice turning
pitiful and pleading. "He /needs/ help. We have to help him! Look at
him, he doesn't understand what's going on. Look at his clothes! They're
probably going to hold him for ransom."
Shasa's eyes glazed over for a moment, a tiny, wistful smile
touching one corner of her mouth.
"SHASA!" Pelagia gasped, again scandalized by her companion.
"I wouldn't!" Shasa bit back, instantly defensive. "Okayokayokay,
maybe I thought about for a second, but I wouldn't! It just popped in
there! I wouldn't have done it. My tribe has hospitality laws, you
know."
Pelagia planted both hands on her hips, not entirely convinced.
"Well, I would HOPE not. His family would be worried.... but look at
what he's wearing! Shasa, that's /dyed fabric,/ and he looks like he's
wearing it for travelling... he must be very wealthy."
Shasa blinked. This was an angle she hadn't considered.
"Wealthy, huh?"
Pelagia nodded, the solemn expression on her face somewhat
diminished by the bobbing of her multiple tails of hair.
"Well... well... what are we waiting for, then?" Shasa sputtered,
pointing toward the scene of the crime, as it were. "There are only
three of them. My grandmother could take three of them!"
Pelagia nodded, turning back toward the bandits. Both girls had
missed the unusual display of electric wards flaring at the bandits'
attempt to steal Indalecio's stone. Considering that their reactions
would have mirrored those of the men they intented to challenge, it was
a fine stroke of luck, or fate, that they had been busy arguing among
themselves. It was Pelagia who noticed that the two lesser thieves were
preparing to charge Indalacio, and it was she who thus cried out to
distract them, even as she sprinted down the hill in long strides.
"Hey! Don't you know it's not nice to pick on helpless travelers!
Why don't you pick on someone your own size!"
The bandits, who did indeed know that it was NOT nice to pick on
helpless travellers, but were accustomed to securing their livelihood by
that particular pasttime, simultaneously turned their heads to see what
manner of creature dared to interrupt them. The answer amused them
beyond belief.
"Look, boss." One of them drawled, unfurling his hand toward the
girls in a patronizing gesture. "These girls don't seem to like the way
we run things around here. Maybe we teach them some manners."
"No chance, sandrat road scum," Shasa retorted, the words running
together in her haste to get all five out of her mouth as swiftly as
possible. The bandit in question, originally merely annoyed, crossed the
invisible mental line into severely annoyed. Both of them charged
forward, although slowly enough for their body language to indicate that
neither thought dispatching of two mere girls would take much time or
effort.
The first of them discovered belatedly that Pelagia had a
distinct advantage in her limb length; she caught him utterly by
surprise, turning sideways and planting the bottom of one foot securely
in the center of his face. The bandit, who hadn't thought her close
enough to strike him yet, had no time to raise his arms in defense, or
to set in action any other defensive maneuver. There was a satisfying
crunch, and the bandit staggered backwards clutching his nose. Pelagia
gave him no time to reassess the situation, moving in while he was still
dazed.
Meanwhile, the second bandit was dealing with the equally
aggressive, although smaller, bundle of irate nerves that was Shasa. If
Pelagia's advantage was in the length of her limbs, Shasa's was in her
movement. The desert girl simply would /not/ hold still. After much
ducking, swinging, and dodging on both sides, the bandit finally caught
her staff just below the split, and yanked hard, jerking her forward.
Without batting an eyelash, Shasa leaned forward and sunk her teeth into
the hand holding her staff. The bandit yowled and released it almost
immediately, at which time Shasa drove the fork up into his face.
Unfortunately for him, his eyes were set apart the same exact length as
each side of the fork, or at least close enough to the exact side to
have the intended result. Pelagia, meanwhile, had succeeded in
browbeating her assailant with several more well-placed boots to the
head. Half-blinded from blows to his temples and dizzy from the repeated
impact of Pela's foot, the man finally determined that a strategic
retreat would be the best idea. Half-blinded himself, Shasa's attacker
shortly followed suit, leaving the erstwhile commander of the two to
choose.
For a moment, he pondered taking Indalecio hostage, but upon
turning his attention back to his victim, found that said victim had
discreetly edged away from him during the conflict. Shasa and Pelagia
were now quite solidly between the bandit and Indalecio; the bandit
would have to go through them to get to his intended target. Therefore,
he too yielded to the better course of valor. Shasa waved her staff
after him, expelling her somewhat biased and severely impolite
dissertation on his parentage at the top of her lungs.
Pelagia spun on her heel, breathing a sigh of relief as she sheathed her
daggeragain. She hadn't really intended on using it on another human being,
even a bandit, and was certainly glad that she hadn't been forced into it. She
glanced around for a moment... where had the accosted man gone? She discovered
he was some distance off, safe from the scuffling women and bandits, though he
had picked up an improvised form of self defense and was still clutching it tightly - a tree branch far so large and unwieldy that it threatened to topple the fragile looking man. Even
now, he seemed to be trying to hold it up to ward her off. Pelagia caught
herself staring, one eyebrow quirked, at the man's odd choice of weaponry,
before shaking her head and smiling faintly. "I'm sorry.. are you all right? We
just saw those men were trying to hurt you, so.." She approached him
tentatively.
Indalecio watched as the taller of the two women approached him
carefully, murmuring softly as though to calm a frightened child, or wounded
animal. Upon looking down at his impromptu weapon, he realized that this
was probably not far from how he appeared to them. He'd been so surprised
by the reaction of his pendant to the bandit's touch that he'd hardly even
noticed the girls' arrival until they were almost on top of his assailants.
By all appearances they'd come to save him, but then again as far as he knew
they could simply have come to steal the prize. Still, they didn't seem to
be threatening him now and, considering the fact that they'd so handily
dispatched those bandits, the branch probably wouldn't do him much good
anyway. He briefly considered using his magic to distract them long enough
to get away, but immediately pushed that thought aside. If they weren't
threatening him now, they most certainly would if they ever realized who he
was and where he came from. Still, he knew he shouldn't let down his guard.
By all accounts, the earthbound people were savage and unpredictable, and
a wrong move might just make them turn on him. After slowly setting down
the heavy branch, Indalecio faced the two girls with as open and
non-threatening a pose as he could manage, making sure to keep his hand in
view.
"Thank you for driving away those bandits. I wonder if you could help
me. I'm a stranger to these parts, and I seem to have lost my way. Is
there a town or village nearby where I might find a place to stay?"
Indalecio spoke slowly and clearly to make sure they understood. They
seemed to speak the same language, but the dialect had obviously evolved
over the years and was a bit hard to understand.
"We were heading for a town, actually," answered the tall girl, her brow
creasing faintly as she struggled with Indalecio's accent. It was fortunate
that he had the presence of mind to speak slowly; the accent itself was clearly
enough to puzzle her. "You could go with us if you want... ... uhm... Sir?"
Despite the slight barrier of dialect, Indalecio sensed the respect
inherent not only in the title, but the elevation thereof designated by the
audible capital letter. For a moment, he wondered if the girl had been
bewitched by the earlier flash of his stone into thinking he was some sort of
diety, although the thought was swiftly banished. Surely if that had been the
case, the bandits would have thought the same thing. It was then that he
noticed the girl was admiring his clothing in much the same way the bandits
had. He remembered the bandits' earlier comments regarding his rank and bit his
lip. As he opened his mouth to explain the misunderstanding, the other girlfinished her string of insults and bounded over, announcing her presence with
unnecessary volume.
"HA! That should teach those filthy scorpions! So, what was it you were
staring at? They were about to take your head off, you know."
Again, Indalecio opened his mouth to explain, and again he was interrupted,
this time by a less-noisy gasp by the taller girl, and the horrified aside that
followed. She flashed an apologetic look at Indalecio as she murmured to her
compantion.
"ShaSA! You shouldn't speak to him like that! Remember what we talked about
earlier?"
Shasa rolled her eyes, frustrated at being asked to think back that far,
although her expression changed abruptly when she realized to what her
companion referred. Indalecio watched the emotions flicker across her face like
multicolored moths; frustration melted into epiphany, epiphany into shock, and
finally shock into amazement. She replied to Pelagia under her breath, although
loud enough for Indalecio to hear it easily.
"You mean he's a..."
Pelagia nodded frantically before Shasa reached the last word of the
sentence, eyes tracking back to Indalecio for a moment. She was apparently
aware that he could hear the conversation, even if Shasa was not.
"... and we just...?"
There was further frantic nodding, after which the shorter girl bowed
deeply.
"Your majesty!"
Pelagia beamed. Indalecio, on the opposite end of the spectrum, was
hard-pressed to force laughter into a fit of coughing, the spasms of which
caused Pelagia considerable distress, as she had to decide whether whacking him
on the back to dislodge whatever he was "choking" on would be a permissible
case of infringement upon his person. Fortunately, she was saved the final
decision, as Indalecio managed to curb his hilarity before she had come to a
consensus.
"No...no, I'm not a... I'm just a traveller, like the two of you... I..."
Even as he attempted to explain, he realized that it was a lost cause. Both
girls were looking at him with veiled suspicion that informed him better than
any verbal response would have; they thought his denial was complete hooey, and
there was nothing he could say that would convince them otherwise. Ah, well, he
thought. He had tried to travel the honest route, and no one could blame him
for the overactive imaginations of the earthbound people.
"I think we should escort him to the city, Shasa... I... if that's all right
with you, Sir..." Pelagia's features spread into a tentative smile as she
amended her statement; her companion was trying hard not to look directly at
Indalecio, embarrassed at having sworn excessively in his hearing. Noting that
Shasa was, for the moment, at a loss of words, Pelagia continued. "We should
probably keep moving. Shasa says we want to get as far as we can before the sun
is high. Is that... is that all right with you, Sir?"
Pelagia fidgeted slightly as she awaited a response from the fair-haired
traveller - who, she had noted now that they were only a few feet away, was
nearly a head taller than her, which was amazing considering that she herself
was taller than many of the Sea-Cliff clansmen. He still seemed taken aback by
their attitude towards and merely blinked at her for a moment or two, and
Pelagia suspected that he must be deep in enemy territory to be surprised at
simple politeness.
"Th.. that sounds fine, actually. It seems to be quite hazardous to go it
alone, as you could no doubt ascertain," the man said, looking rather sheepish
as he glanced aside for a moment.
Shasa glanced up at the sun, which was nearing its zenith, and snorted
impatiently. "Well if that's settled, we'd best get a move on, I'd at least
like to get away from the great wide open before we all stop to chat." Without
warning she started off in the direction she and Pelagia had been travelling
before their run-in with the bandits. The other two looked over at her, then at
one another, before Pela gave a light shrug in reponse to her friend's
mannerisms and jogged along to catch up. A few more seconds, and Indalecio was
alongside them, though he was straggling a bit when faced with Shasa's
extremely brisk walking pace.
Shasa continued matter-of-factly, "There's water close by, we should stop
there. And I suppose that we're far enough away from the desert that we can
start travelling by day-"
Pela suddenly cut her off with a little gasp and a sudden exclamation. "Shasa!"
Shasa nearly stumbled over a dense clump of bushes as she halted her rapid
stride. "What, *what!?" Her brow furrowed slightly. "Don't *do* that, I thought
you'd stepped on a rattlesnake!"
The ponytailed girl turned a little red in the cheeks, covering her mouth with
one hand self-consciously. "No, it's not that... it's just that we completely
forgot to introduce ourselves properly!" She turned to Indalecio with a faint,
nervous smile. "I'm sorry, were are my manners..."
Indalecio, meanwhile, had been glancing around behind him to make sure she
hadn't spotted more bandits riding up behind them. "Pardon? Oh, no... I wasn't
concerned about it, please don't think I was offended..." Now it was his turn
to wear a smile rather apprehensively - in all truth, he hadn't expected much
in the way of formality among such primitive people. He wasn't particularly
expecting them to have proper names at all, for that matter. Shasa had to
resist the urge to roll her eyes at all the excessive politeness of her two
non-desert companions.
Though she had no idea how to properly introduce herself to royalty, Pela made
her best attempt at it, bowing slightly as she would before her clan's Shaman.
"I'm Pelagia of the Sea Cliffs, and this is my dear friend Shasa of the Desert
People. We're very pleased to meet you, Your Highne- ...noble sir." she amended
her last statement. Shasa pressed her palms flat together in front of her in an
almost prayerlike gesture and bowed as well, after a prompting glance from her
companion.
Indalecio couldn't help but still be amazed that they thought he held such high
status - him, of all people. For a brief moment he mused upon what his students
would say if they could see him at this particular moment. Nonetheless, he
responded to the unexpected display of civility as he would back home, by
making a sweeping bow. "Indalecio al'Talib." Straightening again, he continued,
trying out the alien names carefully. "Miss Pelagia, Miss Shasa, the pleasure
is also mine. No doubt I would be in several pieces were it not for your timely
assistance."
Pelagia beamed, apparently very impressed, though Shasa murmured to her through
clenched teeth to curtail her outward frustration with such time wasting, "Are
we done? Can we go?" Normally she would simply wave her staff around and bellow
to get the two slowpokes walking again, but the wheels in her mind were still
turning over the possibility that they would be rewarded for returning a
wayward noble to his home unharmed.
Pela was blissfully unaware of the hostility in Shasa's voice, and nodded with
a brief smile. "Sure." And with that, the unlikely trio continued on their
lazily winding route to the north.
x
