Private Tales Culture shock

[Pern]

Pern was paying exactly zero attention to Hath as he scrutinized the arrowheads. He could have made the comment that he'd seen a baby ogre make better points and she wouldn't even have noticed. Her eyes were locked on the glowing runes, now exposed further as Hath uncovered the remainder of the weapon.

"Does that sometimes. Symbols don't look like orc hand."

"No," Pern blinked, turning her head to one side as her mind immediately began churning over the years of Ancient Rune study she'd labored over under Ignatius' careful teachings, "they're not orcish."

"You have knives?"

"What?" another blink, Pern looked up at the male, "yesh of courshe." That seemed like a silly question - oh. Oh. He was asking for himself.

"Well, ahm...nothing in your shize I'm afraid..." his hand was nearly thrice the size of even a larger human. Nothing here had a pommel large enough to accomodate, not unless he wanted to turn a two-handed longsword into a toothpick. She gave her collection of sale-ready items a sweeping gaze. There were a few longswords on the wall, but chances are they'd be far too light for him. He'd also said knives, so she reckoned a sword was a bit long for his needs.

There wasn't anything. Except...

"Hold the reinsh..." Pern gestured for him to wait as she stepped around the table and made her way back to the area of the smithy where they kept display pieces on view high up on the walls. It was there she reached for what appeared to be a large dagger.

"I made thish earlier in the year to try out a new mixture of metalsh. Shized it for myshelf shince the blade ish quite heavy. Shee how it feelsh?" she passed the blade handle first to him.

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath looked around for some reins but couldn't see any. He could apologise when she came back. As she walked away he carefully drew the axe from the bag but left it lying on the table. He assumed that Scabhair's word counted for a level of trust between them but he didn't think it would be a good idea to go waving it around in the air whilst Pern had her back turned.

Hath took the offered knife with interest. "If runes not orc, know what?" he asked her, giving her free reign to inspect the axe. He balanced the flat of the blade across one finger to find the centre of balance. This was a fighting knife, well weighted. The metal had a slightly darker tint that most of the blades on display. He thumbed the blade. Exceptionally sharp.

He said something in orcish to Scabhair. A brief flurry of words that Pern would not be able to follow until scabhair said: "skinning."

"How much? Even small skinning knife would do," he said. An orc on the road needed knives for many different purposes. He was once again struck by the fact that an orc could craft so well with metal, but was working for humans.

 

[Pern]

There was a certain sense of pride to be had in watching Hath inspect the blade. While orcs had their own way of expressing certain sentiments, she assumed all the gestures made through his face were of the good variety where use and quality of the dagger were concerned. The comment of small skinning blade cause Pern to smile behind her tusks. She'd never considered the thing to be small in any regard and certainly it was too large to be of practical use for a normal human. Maybe a large-statured warrior would have fun carving his enemies with it. But to an orc like Hath? A small skinning blade.

Pern waved a dismissive hand at him, "Take it. It shervesh no purposhe here." The metal she'd used to make it had been scraps anyway, melted together in what Gibson had described as an 'ugly unwieldly thing' that 'no man in his right mind would pay for.'

"The handle ish behemoth tooth," she added for good measure, "won that in a game of cardsh."

She'd momentarily forgotten about the axe until he asked of the runes. Lordy, she was a bit of a scatterbrained mess today. Get it together, Nilli.

"Ah, hmm-" stepping around him, the smaller orc carefully took up the axe and brought it over to the light of the forge, now slowly dying in the sleepy evening hours. She turned it this way and that, thumbed the blade, scratched a nail over the surface. It only took a few moments of feeling it in her hands to know the maker - she didn't need runes for that.

"Thish wash made by dwarvesh," she said, pointing to the intricate scrolling and knotwork design, "theesh are typical of their shtyle, and here-" her claw indicated a small emblem carved in, "thish ish the maker'sh mark. I am not familiar with thish particular mark, but my father might know it."

Lifting the axe blade to eye level, she gave the runes a look, marveling silently at the way they glowed. What wonders the dwarvish enchanters could make, she'd do just about anything to learn from them and craft with their mighty forges. On closer inspection, Pern came to smirk slightly as by the Maker's Mark she noted carved dwarven letters, "It wash named Orc Biter."

 

[Hath Charosh]

"No not..." Hath took a moment to sort the jumble of words out in his head. "This is a good knife. That I must trade for. I also need a skinning knife. Small one will do."

Hath was going to have to end up getting Scabhair to translate more directly if that didn't get the point across. He liked this knife. A tool was a tool, but this was good enough for killing. You didn't want poor quality in hand when your life was at risk.

Suddenly what she had said of the axe caught up with him. He barked a laugh before stifling it. Scabhair had been clear that drawing attention was a bad idea within the walls of Elbion when you were an orc.

"I guess it met an orc that bit back. Can't call it that. Biter will do." He wore an easy grin now. Apparently the original weilder losing his life to an orc in battle tickled his sense of humour.

 

[Pern]

"Oh," well if small didn't matter, "yesh, I have shomething..." the blades in the shop were primarily her responsibility to craft, leaving the larger projects like armor to Gibson. Pern was just happy she didn't have to manage the horseshoes, hooks, candle holders, and door hinges anymore - those had been given to their newest Apprentice Suther.

Back to the display wall, Pern pulled a set of keys off a hook and unlocked a display shelf. It was too dark to have Hath take a look through it, but she had an idea of which knife would fit the job best. Her hand grasped a sheathed knife to the far right and nimbly pulled the blade from its cover to show Hath.

"How do you like thish?"

 

[Hath Charosh]

"Will work fine," he said. It wasn't a rude comment on the quality of the knife, despite his tone. He quite literally meant that the skinning knife seemed solid and sharp and would therefore work fine.

"Axe doesn't say what it does?" he asked. He grasped it just below the head and cast his eye over it. "Glowing makes me think magic. Doesn't seem to do any. Just stays sharp." As far as Hath was aware remaining sharp despite all the abuse he gave it might just have been a sign of dwarven craftsmanship. Unfortunately the runes gave no indication of any function. It wasn't as if the manufacturer laid out the runes as an instruction manual.

 

[Pern]

A nod, Pern gave him the price for the skinning knife and locked the case back up.

Her gaze drifted over to Scy who was sitting on an empty workbench, listening in, and to her friend she offered a curious gaze that indicated a question towards Hath that had nothing to do with his business here. Who was this fellow and how did he come to travel with Scy? Was Scy ... interested in him? Pern knew next to nothing about orc and she'd never met enough of them to form an opinion of desireable attributes, but she supposed given what she'd seen he might be considered handsome?

He was certainly strong and, apparently, had a history of warfare.

So many questions she wanted to ask, so much to catch up on with her friend. Made her wonder just how long they'd be sticking around, though her gut told her not long at all. Brushing a few wily curls from her face, Pern turned back to Hath as he took up his axe again.

"Dwarvesh don't washte runic markingsh on sharpnessh. Their shteel doeshn't need it." She stepped over to give the runes one last look, "Shomething...to do with barriersh. Theshe runesh aren't ash old ash the onesh I've shtudied, but I could better interpret them at home."

That was a brilliant idea. She looked to Scy, "Have you eaten yet? Ignashush would be glad for the company."

 

[Scabhair]

When she felt a gaze boring into the side of her head, Scabhair glanced up at the codex in her lap. She’d been re-reading and amending some of her earlier entries on Elbion. Much had changed since her last visit, though just as many things stayed the same.

Her friend, for example.

She smiled a quick smile, tilting her head in mild confusion when Pern didn’t say anything after all. Odd.

One conversation about dwarven craftsmanship later, Pern did address her.

“Dinner?” Scabhair perked up, then slipped off the workbench. “I’d love to come—” she paused for a moment, rattling off some quick orcish at Hath, “we’d love to come, but will Ignatius be alright with a third orc at his table?”

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath passed over the correct coin. It had taken a lot of concentration to count out the correct denominations and then add a few more with his other hand. Orcs appreciated craftsmanship and skill passed down through the generations. Though they usually traded the same principal applied that more was offered for something perceived as more rare or desirable. It was a very nice knife.

"I can..." he started to offer, thinking it though, "...stay at the Inn. In the room. No one should bother me there."

 

[Pern]

Uttering her thanks for the payment and noting, silently, the extra thrown in, Pern sighed and put the coin into a lockbox which she secured and tucked under her arm, keyring jingling at hand.

"Of courshe he will, Ignashush lovesh entertaining," she said, as if the question were quite a silly one. Ignatius never turned a traveler away simply for their race - he was more apt to drag them in and feed them, protesting all the way if needs be. She supposed she inherited her avid fascination for strangers and their stories from him. She dismissed Hath's suggestion of waiting at the Inn entirely, "Noh, noh, you musht join ush for dinner. I promishe it ish no bother."

Golden eyes gave Hath a quick one-over, a clawed hand rubbing at her chin in thought, "Might need to bring a bigger chair." She smiled, "And a bigger pot." Because when you had a large group to feed, or a small group with large bellies, the only good way to go was stew.

Unless you had a firepit large enough to host a boar on a spit, which they did not.

Yes, rabbit stew would work just fine. Pern began tallying the supplies they had at home in her head, thinking there aught to be enough.

 

[Scabhair]

“Alright, alright,” Scy held up her hands with a smile, never one to turn down a warm meal. Ignatius was one of the few humans she’d met in Elbion who didn’t turn their nose up at their kind – or any kind, really. He was, she thought, an example of what education was supposed to do.

Instead they were stuck with a College full of circlejerking scholars who spent their days congratulating each other on achievements while drifting further and further away from the people they were meant to enlighten.

Dismissing her bitter thoughts, Scabhair calmly fell into the old motions of helping Pern close up the shop. It was rare that they were allowed to go outside during the day, and so their visits were limited to the few hours after dusk fell and the curfew hadn’t started yet. She’d spent many an evening chatting about the events of the day whilst they put the tools away and doused the furnace.

 

[Hath Charosh]

Deciding that a knife was less threatening than a short sword Hath strapped the new blade to his belt. The sword was packed away with his axe. His pack seemed relatively light, despite everything he carried. He was used to ranging over long distances with enough equipment on his back to fight, hunt, sleep and survive.

Even if they would be speaking in a language he struggled with, they would be three orcs exchanging stories around a meal. A little piece of familiarity in a very alien city. If Scabhair had not been able to entirely fit in with her education and clipped Elbion tones then he doubted Pern had been offered the respect that would be afforded a human here either. But she was also not of his world. No knowledge of her cultural heritage. An interesting plight, the two of them must have led living her.

 

[Pern]

There was something pleasantly nostalgic about watching Scy fall into her old routine. Pern smiled to herself, thinking of how much she missed those days of having the company of her friend in the twilight hours. Like clockwork almost every evening Scy would show up close to closing time. She'd sit on an unoccupied workbench while Pern and Gibson wrapped up their day's project or, as was fairly common, continue working into the dark hours of the evening. They'd talk about the day; Pern and Gibson about clients worth mentioning, Scy about her day at classes in the College and the many things she learned.

It was those conversations she'd come to miss the most. Scy had been her source of all-things-College where Pern hadn't been granted admittance. It was a sad day for her when her friend graduated and left the city to pursue her own life.

The shop didn't take long to close up and without much time passed Pern had locked the entrance and began leading her fellow Orcs up to the Residential District and her home.

Maester Ignatius Oscric of the 5th Order lived comfortably among the upper echelons of Elbion society. At his age, experience, knowledge, power, and skill the man had earned a living of fine luxuries to retire to. Pern welcomed them inside a tidy home that was, obviously, built for humans but accomodating enough considering the locale. It was warm inside and filled with candlelight. Every room had shelves covered with books and artifacts. Various paintings depicted lands far beyond the walled merchant city. Tables dotted corners and open spaces with curios and foreign decor. Tapestries and ornamental rugs added splashes of color and exotic flair.

"Late night tonight, Nilli?" the voice of an old man echoed from the den to the left and Pern stepped in to find the man sitting in his spot, sunk deep into an overstuffed armchair with a smoking pipe in his mouth, a book on his lap, and a grey tabbycat watching with moony eyes from her perch atop his chair.

"Got a late order from shomeone," Pern replied with a smile, "would you believe they let orcsh in thish playsh?"

"Orcs!" Ignatius piped, age eyes peering over a pair of half-moon spectacles to look around Pern, "I hope you invited them over for dinner."

"Well I thought they might help ush eat shome rabbit shtew..."

"Scy, is that you?" a smile bloomed on Ignatius' face as he slowly pushed himself up from his chair and set his book aside, "come here and give Old Man Iggy a hug."

"Hath," Pern said, stepping aside to let Scy through, "thish ish my father, Ignashush."

 

[Hath Charosh]

"It is...nice to greet you," Hath said firmly. His hand started to come up from his side but swiftly returned. There was no point bringing his hand to his brow in thanks when the humans wouldn't know the gesture. He was slowly finding out that a lot of non-verbal communication was in common between their cultures, but that orcs were far more prone to using hand gestures.

Whilst he hadn't been here long he had seen little in the way of care and affection. Nobles riding through the streets heedless of the peasants who had the scatter out of their way. The guards harboured nothing but suspicion, or outright derision for the orcs. A simple family reunion recoloured his picture of the city. He had always known that humans kept smaller family units. The females were expected to care for their young for most of their lives. By contrast an orc babe had a tight grip and would be raised by the clan when they were walking and hunting.

A fraction of the tension fell from his broad shoulders.

"I like rabbit," he said, looking for somewhere to put his pack down.

 

[Scabhair]

She’d barely gotten her boots off when she heard him calling her name from the other room. Her mouth split into a grin of her own, brows knotting into a sheepish apology for Hath before she practically skipped over to Ignatius. The man let out a gamely oof as she scooped him up in a proper hug, lifting his old bones and dusty robes off the floor as if he weighed no more than a sack of feathers.

“Not her actual father,” Scabhair was quick to explain in Orcish as soon as she set the venerable Maester back on the carpet. Culture shock was all well and good, but she’d rather not have vital detail lost in translation.

Again.

“He raised her like the clan raises lost children.” Orphans were by no means a rarity in towns, but life was much harder still in the tribes. Parents and offspring could perish to a whole host of dangers that no city brat had ever even heard of, let alone encountered. “As far as humans go, he’s one of the best I’ve ever met.”

Turning to the man in question again, Scabhair continued in Common. “We’ll go dress the rabbits quick in the back. This fine smith I know made a new skinning knife, and I, for one, am dying to try it out.”

She motioned for Hath to follow as she moved though the familiar house. They exited into a small backyard where the ice storage was dug into the ground. The river water flowing down from the Seret kept meats cool despite the sweltering heat that would roll north from Amol-Kalit this time of year.

It wasn’t long until they had four hares laid out on a wooden slab next to the house. The blood they’d collect into a small bowl set aside, to make the broth richer. No part of the animal would be wasted as they worked. She’d taught the city-dwellers that much over the years, at least.

 

[Pern]

"Fine Smith you say..." Ignatius was carefully straightening his many layers of robes, a doleful smile following the trio of orcs as they made their way through the back of his home and out into the yard.

As they worked at the back table they were joined by the grey tabby who elected to hop onto their work surface to sniff and inspect.

"Ah, Mim," Pern shooed at the cat, "too many knivesh up here, go on the bench. Go on."

Mim folded her ears and jumped away, scooting off into the garden where she sharpened her claws on a old, carved tree stump bearing the face of a wood spirit.

The orc Smith lofted her brows as she worked at skinning the rabbit in the same way Scy had taught her years prior, "How ish Ino? Getting along better now?" She'd never met the gathamhr but Scy had spoken of her during her last visit.

And then, because she didn't want Hath to feel left out of the conversation she added, "And you Hath? Do you alsho have a gathamhr?"

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath looked significantly more relaxed than he had a few hours ago. Skinning an animal was a simple task that his hands could do on their own. Their host was also - by a significant margin - the most welcoming human he had met in Elbion. Hath didn't smile easily, but the frown was gone.

For the space of a breath he had thought a free meal had leapt onto their table. In the savanna they would sometimes leave a kill in the open until wild dogs came to turn a meal into a feast. Apparently this was, however, a pet.

"I am not of Aiforn," he said with a shake of his head. "Indoeirr is bigger than yours," he said, curved tip of the skinning knife tilted towards the cat.

"Good knife," he said as he returned to cleaning it. It was incredibly difficult to tell if he had been attempting humour.

 

[Scabhair]

Like a moth to flame, Scabhair abandoned the pair at the bench and wandered after the tiny cat. Wasn’t much left to do at any rate – just chopping up the cleaned meat and throwing the lot into the stew.

She fell into a crouch beside the stump, offering her hand for the animal to sniff. Its green eyes widened, ears flicking from wary to excited. The orc grinned and scooped up the cat with no resistance whatsoever, standing again to bring a purring Mim back to the table.

“I think Ino has him, though,” she replied absently, entirely absorbed by scratching the gray tabby behind the ear. “Oh, and she’s fine. Probably mauling some stupid merchants to death. Don’t stray off the main road, kids.”

Finally Scabhair looked up to see them scooping the chunks of meat into a great cast iron pot. “This one’s new, isn’t she?” she asked, nodding her chin to the cat in her arms.

 

[Pern]

"Yeah, Mim ish a little thing..." the orcess smiled as she watched the cat in Scy's arms.

Then to Hath's reply about his origins, "Oh," Pern itched at her scalp with a claw.

It would be a lie for her to say that she knew anything about orc tribes beyond the one from which Scy hailed. Such things had always been a bit of a curiosity to her, given her own race, but never seemed to apply to anything in her line of study or work. She had no reason to know of the various orc tribes, for all she knew the one she came from had been wiped from the face of Arethil.

The table was clear of rabbit. She lifted a pale of water and splashed it across the surface to wash away the blood then set to peeling and chopping the vegetables for the stew.

"Ignashush found her up at the College late winter, jusht a kitten in the cold. Old Fritsh had been looking after her but he could only do sho mush." Fritz being the college's resident (and ancient) wolfhound. The dog was massive, rangy, affable, and known to all students, professors, Maesters, and regulars.

"Where are you from Hath?"

 

[Hath Charosh]

"Savanna, south and east." A pause. "Very south and very east. Two months of travel."

He wasn't homesick for his tribe, but it had now been a long time since he had seen any of his people. That wasn't unusual, but it seemed that with being drafted into the service of the Steelheart mercenary company - for crimes he still didn't understand - he was going to miss the migration south to Penteth Charosh. It would be a shame to miss the Great Rites when Lessat finally caught the sun. When the orcs danced by the light of the pyre and revelled in what it was to be an orc.

Pern would never have witnessed such a thing. Hath had met the Jagesh tribe from the woodlands east of his tribe's home once. They had several wild humans, and therefore half-humans, who had become part of their tribe. They were more orc than human so was Pern more human than orc? It didn't matter, he supposed. As long as one was true to what they wanted to be. He hoped that those of the city accepted her, but from what Scabhair had told him of the city it didn't seem likely.

He cast a curious glance towards Scabhair. She had seemed drawn to the tiny domestic cat almost immediately and was now lavishing it with attention. The corner of his lips quirked upwards.

"We have much smaller lions than Inodeirr in the savanna. Would still eat me though. Is you cat for hunting pests?" he asked, turning back to Pern. He was curious as to why someone would keep such a small feline.

 

[Pern]

Two months?

Pern had never been further than a week's travel away from Elbion. She'd never seen anything past Elbion's meadow farmlands south of the Cairou river, or any further East than Aeryndale. Aside from paintings in a few of the wealthy Merchant homes and stories she'd read, the orcess couldn't hardly imagine what a savannah looked like.

"Think I've sheen a shavannah cat'sh pelt before, come in on a trade ship. The noblesh buy them for capesh..."

The only savannah cat she'd seen was stretched across the back of Sir Aberforth who had requested she craft a sword so encrusted with gemstones it couldn't possibly have been of any use other than hanging on a wall. She'd made a hefty amount of coin for her efforts, though.

"Oh Mim ish quite the accomplished mousher. Getsh a shparrow from time to time ash well. Though the ratsh are a bit big for her. We kill thoshe with a mallet."

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath furrowed his brow at pelts getting all the way to Elbion. He wasn't sure that his tribe would dare try and go over a pride of lions to trade their pelts. Even if they had to chase off a group before they stole food or started to hunt the tribe it was only as a last resort.

"Would not hunt one on purpose. They hunt in groups. Very hard to spot in the grass..."

He looked thoughtfully off to one side. "Might have been what those humans my killed and a... What they were after."

He had very nearly specified that the tribe had eaten the human hunters who had been deep inside the tribe's territory, but present company probably didn't need to know that.

"Do these cats hunt in packs?" he asked, if only to move the topic away from cooking people.

 

[Scabhair]

“Nope,” Scy chimed into the conversation. The cat in question was now happily settled on a broad shoulder, tail swishing from side to side as if there was still travel dirt to dust off her cloak.

“Surprisingly solitary, in fact,” she elaborated, stepping in to help the pair lug the large pot into the black kitchen. “Siblings stick around each other sometimes, but that’s all I’ve observed. They’re as territorial as ever, though.”

It only took a few trips to the well outside to drown the pile of rabbit meat. As they moved onto chopping the vegetables, Scy kneeled in front of the stove to stoke the fire to a cooking flame. All the while Mim remained comfortably perched in the nook of her neck, content to purr its many mousing achievements into her ear.

 

[Pern]

"Shometimesh the straysh band together in shmall clans," Pern said as she followed Scy inside and took over gathering the necessary table settings for the dining room, "in the shummer they run all over the docksh, waiting for handoutsh from the fishing shipsh."

She smiled to herself as she recalled an afternoon spent picking up materials from a trade shipment. There had been a new litter of feral kittens running amok, causing all sorts of trouble.

"Not quite ash grand ash the shavannah catsh ... but we do get vishited by a giant gryphon from time to time."

Scy had never been there to witness the arrival of the gryphon. The Dawnbringer ferried supplies and packages from place to place, all over the world - or so Ignatius said. It was she who his shop in the Merchant District had been named after.

 

[Hath Charosh]

It was quite obvious that Hath hadn't seen a domesticated car before. It was making a low sort of rattle, but seemed content to remain curled around Scabhair's neck. His expression managed to carry both bemusement as he observed it as well as the concentration required just to keep up with the conversation in common human.

Only the word gryphon had his head turning. The word was essentially the same in orcish: griffen. They were mythical beasts part lion and part eagle, but far, far larger. He hadn't ever thought they were real. Just a story, as dragons were.

"How does the city fight it off?" he asked Pern.