Private Tales What Does Not Kill Us

[Pern]

She was probably going to regret not at least trying to find sleep but for the life of her, Pern could not bring herself to close her eyes. Beyond the nervous current still swimming in her gut, she could not stop the image of the hammer implanted in the man's skull or the feel of the weight of it and the strength of her arm as she'd thrown it.

The pages of her father's journal kept her mind busy. She'd read through it numerous times before but never seemed to bore from doing so again. Every now and then something would sink in a little more than the last time. A bit more understanding gleaned from one more year of life lived.

"A game?" Pern blinked over at him, thinking it odd that he bring up such a thing only now. Then again, rarely had their company been so plagued with silence. She gently closed the journal and shifted over closer to him, "I did not take you for shomeone who played gamesh."

 

[Hath Charosh]

"A game," he confirmed.

Hath stood up and picked up one of the dry twigs he had scattered around. He took two steps closer and then lowered his bulk to sit cross legged facing Pern.

"I am...happy in silence and on my own for long times."

Clearly, given their previous conversation he was not always content with being in that state.

He started drawing circles in the dirt, making a rough diamond.

"But this keeps thoughts...sharp. If I crossed another scout when the tribe was moving we might play."

Hath the explained the game. One of them used wavey lines, the other straight. It was an old fashioned tactical conundrum. They started drawing lines between the dots one at a time. They had to try and block one another whilst connecting their side of the map to the other.

 

[Pern]

Pern offered curiosity a chance. As he explained it in his best trade words, she understood it to be a game of strategy which didn't settle well with her. Ignatius had often tried to teach her games of strategy to no avail. The intricacies of such things did not come easily to her mind - one meant for working primarily on a straight line, no pun intended.

She fumbled through several rounds, growing more disconcerted with herself with each successive loss, and allowed herself to think that this was probably something else that Scy was quite skilled at.

"I am not... very good at theesh typesh of thingsh," she admitted to Hath with a despondent sigh, "perhapsh I should try to shleep again."

 

[Hath Charosh]

"If you wish," Hath said. "You are getting better. Thought it might be tiring for the brain."

"You have had a bad day. I made it worse."

It was not the reopening of a topic, but a simple statement. It had been particularly stupid of him to throw such things out when she was suffering.

"Also," he said, wiping the 'board' clean with a sweep of one hand. "Late at night is not best for learning new things. Maybe at Wikkerton we can find a new book. You have games like this you played before?"

A small village was highly unlikely to have books, but it was a thought.

 

[Pern]

The care he was taking was obvious and Pern did appreciate it, but struggled to find many words to spare in response. She nodded to him on the idea of finding another book - something she actually hadn't thought of. It was a good idea, and one more thing to add to the list to find in town. So far Hath needed new boots, a new bow and arrows, and while she didn't need it and wasn't even sure she'd have coin to spare for it, a new book to add to her father's library did sound nice.

"I did not really ... play gamesh," she replied with a brow furrowed in ponderous thought on the matter, "no other children wanted to play with me when I was young."

The strategy games her father attempted to teach her didn't count. She'd played them only enough times to learn the rules and then learn she really did not enjoy them.

"Moshtly I read the booksh in my father'sh shop."

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath had keen eyesight. In the dying embers of the fire, even that starlight that made its way through the canopy was enough to see her expression.

She did not look pained as she took herself back to those memories. But they hurt Hath. Perhaps a half breed would not have been treated well in the savanna tribes; he could not know for certain.

He had become a friend, one of the few she had. He had not meant to make that complicated, but he would still not regret admitting his feelings. She had become so important to him. He wanted her. That was simple to him, but he could see how he had changed things at exactly the wrong time.

"I do not know how to read," he said. She knew that, but he repeated it anyway. "What books did you enjoy?"

 

[Pern]

Pern had scooched back to where she had been settled by the fire with her father's journal, though she had not opened it back up. She'd let herself lay back on her bedroll after putting the journey away once again and let her tired gaze look up at the canopy above.

Jagged edges of a human world spearing into the landscape beyond of the wilds. Impertinent.

"Journalsh moshtly," she said in return, "I liked to read about the adventuresh other people had out in the world. All the plashesh they went."

A sigh followed as she rolled to her side to face the warmth of the fire, momentarily withdrawn before she looked back to Hath, "I shupposhe I will have to write my own one day."

 

[Hath Charosh]

"You should," he said firmly.

"The others, in my tribe, they told their stories. No stories of Hath. I had to be forgotten."

It was painful to look back on more clearly. His uncle had kept him far from the centre of the tribes. Otherwise he would have been killed.

Returning to the tribe with stories of his own, more experiences and standing up to Bathyr had changed that.

A book was just another story. He thought the telling was just as important, but a book could not so easily change as it was retold.

"Where have you read about that you would visit next?" he asked her.

"Even as we are now..." he said, by which he meant that she was not in his bedroll. A topic he had planned to avoid but needed to brush last. "...I would help you get there. With less...stories...on the way."

 

[Pern]

How terribly sad. She had not realized that the presence of Hath had been stricken from the stories of his clan. Would anyone beyond his mother and who he might've called friends there remember him in five years? Ten? A generation? It seemed so unfair.

Pern had thought if she were to write down these stories, she might've left out the fight with Bathyr. Now she wasn't so sure.

"Mm," her eyes looked to the fire and reflected its brilliant light like gold in the sun, "The Empire ... Alliria. Nordengaard. Cortoshe" and then she looked up again with a smile pulling around her tusks, "the dwarven kingdom in the shky."

 

[Hath Charosh]

"Nordengaard," he repeated, rolling the word around.

Hath did not know why but he liked the sound of its name. It almost sounded orcish.

He smiled back at her. To save him, she had put herself through hell. She hadn't wanted the violence of the wilds. She hadn't deserved to be forced to kill. That wasn't her and he adored her because of that. Her eyes lit up at the prospect of visiting places that had only been stories.

"I do not know it. I know where Alliria is. Would your griffin know where the dwarven kingdom is? You have spoken of it. You deserve to visit somewhere that makes you happy."

Unfortunately he couldn't fly to make that happen, no matter his intentions.

 

[Pern]

Alliria was not hard to find and, if she were honest with herself, she'd passed up several opportunities to go in the past. The city was but a portal stone hop away, with a bit of walking in between, but the journey would have been nowhere near as challenging, dangerous, or arduous as the on she'd taken with Hath. Thinking back on her decision not to go before, Pern realized it had been out of fear of the unknown.

Suddenly a trip to Alliria felt very tame in comparison. Self deprecation came easily for that.

"The Dawnbringer?" Pern asked, blinked, pondered, nodded, "I would think if anyone knew of the kingdom in the shky it would be her but..."

Bemusement replaced her previous smile, "That ish not shomething I would ashk of her."

Dawnbringer, will you give me and my friend a ride to the legendary sky kingdom? No, not unless she was seeking a legendary end to her life. Huh!

 

[Hath Charosh]

"Perhaps then, not a floating city," Hath replied. His tone matching her amusement at his suggestions. Her favour was clearly not one to call upon lightly.

He touched the wound on his shoulder. If there was still any dark trace there he would not want it to be called upon at all. Not that he had been fully conscious for the entire trip.

"More comfortable, in her feathers?" Hath mused.

Sending her thinking with strategy games and ideas for the future was hardly the way to help her sleep, he thought to himself.

"Alliria is far from Vel Anir. That is good," Hath said. "Have you heard of Bathairk?"

 

[Pern]

Pern hm'd at the feathers comment. It had been warm, riding upon the Dawnbringer's back, but only to the extent of how close she could keep herself to the gryphon's mass. The air so high up had been frigidly cold. Pern did not want to think of how uncomfortable that journey had been for Hath within her claws.

"Yesh," she nodded, "you shpoke of it before. I have read a few thingsh, but not in depth."

A yawn took the rest of her words and thoughts away, "I think I will try to resht now."

 

[Hath Charosh]

Alliria was still a human city, but more of a smelting pot of cultures.

"Maybe you will need to convince me to wear more...humanish...clothes if we go to Alliria," he thought out loud. He stood up and swept away any trace of the little game from the dirt with his foot.

He would have been staunchly against such an idea a few years ago. Right now, being hassled less for looking like a wild orc felt worth the indignity. Pern had dressed to fit in with the people of Elbion for years and she had dressed to fit in with his tribe too.

"Good night Pern."

---

The density of foliage reduced as they followed the path of the small river. The river widened as they went, forcing them to cross several tributaries and get their feet wet.

It allowed them to make better progress towards Wikkerton. Hath remained relatively stoic as he moved ahead of Pern to look for any local fauna. Other than a few snakes that were easily flicked away with the stave of a bow or avoided enirely, it was a quiet journey.

"Wikkerton..." he said quietly, coming to stop as he saw faint tendrils of smoke rising above the treeline as the river narrowed. "You said...unhuman?"

 

[Pern]

She did manage to find some sleep, but it wasn't particularly restful. Her morning was slow. Far slower than she felt comfortable with but her body was proving difficult to encourage. Usually Pern could mentally push through fatigue on those rare off-days, yet this morning had proven a challenge. Hath's words had almost not registered with her as she focused on her own careful steps through a rock and stone mottled river shoreline.

"Hm?" Pern looked up, "Oh... yesh. It ish a town of beashtfolk and non-humansh. We should not find any trouble there, according to my father'sh journal. Humansh, however, are not very welcome."

Orcish practiced having failed yesterday, the thought to switch back to it had not even occurred to her yet.

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath remained in place, facing Pern with his axe flat across his shoulders. He stood on a flat rock, worn smooth when the river ran higher. Pern looked tired. He felt tired. There were a number of causes: the wound still healing beneath the surface on his back, the emotionally draining conversation from the day before, and a deeper draw from the skirmish.

Hath still wasn't certain if he had truly drawn on some residual dark power or if he had just pushed himself to his limits. That mad chase felt hazy now he looked back at it.

"We should rest here, a day or two, if we can. Trade for what we may need."

He gave a sharp nod and turned back to the way ahead. The river would be meandering down towards the Alliria strait. The tower would likely straddle the river.

"We do not want to come from under a..."

Trade tongue failed him.

"...crossing. We go that way and look for a track to follow in."

He let his axe hang from one hand and turned towards the trees.

 

[Pern]

Resting sounded nice, especially if it involved staying somewhere safe and within civilization. Roaming around the wilds certainly had its beauty and sensation of freedom, but Pern would be lying if she said she slept soundly any time they camped in the wilderness. Every errant sound of nearby fauna woke her. Hath knew those sounds, knew which ones were safe and which ones were not.

She nodded in response to the idea of staying an extra day or so. It would be nice to take some time to experience the town and its many peoples. So far she'd enjoyed her stay with his clan the most, and seeing a populace of non-humans had been of high intrigue consider her life spent in the human-centric Elbion.

"Do you have much experiensh with beashtfolk?" Pern asked after him as he moved to lead the way through the trees in search of a footpath to follow in, "They are not very welcome in Elbion. It wash very rare to shee them in the main dishtrictsh."

 

[Hath Charosh]

"Beastfolk?" he repeated.

"We had gnolls in the savanna," he replied. "Is that what you mean?"

"Fucking pests," he added quickly. "Would follow an orc hunter and steal the catch."

Hath was about to explain that they typically had to form a raiding party and kill a handful of them to drive them away from their tribe. Food could be scarce and it was necessary. The kind of necessarily violence that she did not need to hear about right now.

There was a trail, trodden into the grass by animals to reach the water he would guess. Hath followed it, trying to stay on roughly the right direction.

 

[Pern]

Pern's brows furrowed in thought, "Maybe? Not like the gnollsh we encountered. I have met another type, down in the port dishtrict. But..." she digressed, having only met the one gnoll captain she couldn't well base her knowledge of them on two moments of her life.

"There are lionfolk, koboldsh, cat people, birdfolk, goblinsh, gnomesh, minotaursh, centaursh... shurely you have sheen shome of thoshe typesh before?" she licked at her lips. Too many words with too many s's.

 

[Hath Charosh]

"Ah," went Hath.

"I would not speak of them as one group. Not to them," Hath said. He gave a shrug. "Like a man that does not know that orcs and goblins are not the same. Even if they did."

"We not not talk to minotaurs. Kobolds do not talk to us. Same reason. Different way. Too big to bother."

"But what is a centaur?" he asked. He knew what one was, but not in trade tongue. It hadn't come up in her lessons on orcish either.

 

[Pern]

Did he consider the term beastfolk to be offensive? Was being lumped into a non-human group like a goblin an insult to an orc such as himself? Pern frowned after him, her eyes drifting upward to the back of his head where she quietly admired her handy-work with his hair.

"Shentaursh..." surprising to hear he did not know them. Her brows curved up, though she suspected they were not an overly common race, "half man, half horshe. I do not think there ish a large population of them in Liadain. Ash I undershtand it, they are more common in the Allir Reach and Taagi Baara."

 

[Hath Charosh]

"Ah, dynfach," Hath replied.

"Gilresh claimed he saw a pack running across the Steppes on the way to Bhathairk. Jarron told him he was a fucking idiot and told everyone they saw a normal group of horses far away."

He was silent for a few strides. Then he stopped. Tilting his head to one side he followed the sound that stood out above the natural order of things.

He turned and jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, smiling at Pern. It was the sound of a smith's hammer in the distance.

"I wouldn't mind seeing a shentaur," he replied.

 

[Pern]

A plaintive frown was offered on behalf of poor Gilresh, "Oh... well maybe he did shee them." It was likely, in that area, or so she'd read. Her own feet came to a stop just as Hath's did and she noted the tilt of his head, the straightening of his spine as he listened. For a moment the sinking feeling of dread crept in - was he alarmed or just... alert?

The thumb... and then a smile? Hath barely ever smiled. She blinked at him curiously, quietly wondering at how nice the expression actually looked on him, and gently cleared her throat to follow the line of his thumb. She listened for a moment, then picked up what his own ears had heard. Unmistakable - the ping ping ping of a smithy. Pern's expression lightened considerably, shedding the shadow of morose she'd been carrying since the last attack, but faltered at his pronunciation of centaur.

"Ah-" she lifted her hand. How to explain? She couldn't even say the word correctly to correct him. A sigh followed, and she dismissed the notion entirely. Someone else without a lisp could do it.

"We are nearly there," Pern said brightly, thinking that she might very much like to have an actual bath if the opportunity presented itself. You could take the orc out of the city, but you couldn't take the city out of the orc.

As they continued on the path it brought them to the edges of a lake which sat just southwest of Wikkerton - but Wikkerton did not immediately present itself as how she'd imagined. At the lake shoreline Hath and Pern found themselves slowly walking among an encampment of sorts. Tents and hovels and dwellings of great variety - as much so as the people they came across. Nary a human in sight, but all sorts of non-humans animatedly talking among themselves as they passed through. No one batted a second look at them, not even for Hath's great axe. There were plenty of orcs among the camp as well and Pern wondered not for the first time if he might run into anyone he knew.

 

[Hath Charosh]

"Ah-"

Hath looked at Pern expectantly. Whatever it was she had to say, she saved it. On a different day he might have pressed for an answer.

It was a short walk on to the outskirts of the town. Hath had expected to see a wall or at least a bridge that could be fortified. One route was wider and more open than the others, the grass flattened from being well trodden.

Hath slowed up. He had moved ahead of Pern through the woods, but not he remained protectively at her shoulder. Even in Bhathairk the tribes that visited stuck relatively closely to their own. As she became more relaxed at the notion of civilisation, Hath was defensive in the unfamiliarity.

The further they went without anyone even approaching them, the more relaxed and confused he became in equal measures.

Seeing a hoof print in the ground, he pointed it out to Pern. He glanced around to see if he could see a dynfach, or a shentaur. There was no sign of one.

"Not seen this many species in one place," he said quietly to Pern.

 

[Pern]

She was actually beginning to pick up on his anxiety and the stiffness of his movements and posture. It put her on edge a bit, given any other time he'd taken on such body language it had been for good reason. But as they moved through, she followed his gaze about and realized rather dumbly that there was no danger, Hath was just nervous and uncomfortable.

How the tables had turned.

Her eyes looked down to where he pointed, and while she'd also not seen any hooved beasts yet, she had seen plenty of normal horses. Even beastfolk used animals of burden.

"I did tell you," she assured him with a gentle touch to his lower arm, "Wikkerton ish a playsh for beashtfolk."

Perhaps now he would understand the broad meaning of the term now.

Pern smiled gently up at him and, given her greater experience with populated spaces and civilization, decided to take the lead. She paused at a small campsite of what looked like harrens - rabbitfolk the likes of which she never thought she'd see.

"Excushe me," she said gently and the doe tending the pot over the campfire looked up, her tall ears pricking, "what ish the fashtesht way into the town?"

The doe's nose twitched at the pair of them, and while she may have look startled she did not seem particularly fearful, "That way," she pointed a delicate hand, "take it to the main road and follow the yellow flags in."

"Thank you," Pern moved to Hath's side as they continued on the path through the encampment. Looking ahead she could see small yellow flags bearing the sigil of Wikkerton ahead, "what do you want to look for firsht?"