Private Tales What Does Not Kill Us

[Hath Charosh]

<<You,>> followed that cackle from the tent, <<Shadow of the Sun Sister. Come here.>>

Hath stiffened at the shaman’s voice. Yska’s words carried like thrown stones, sharp enough that even the wind would flinch at their passing.

He cane to a stop. He had expected the quiet he had found in the rocks to shift into the noise of the orcs gathering around fires. He hadn't expected it to be cut apart by Yska's voice.

Shadow of the Sun Sister.

"Hmm," went Hath.

He did not know what it meant. An orc intrinsically trusted their own shamans. They viewed the shamans of other tribes with deep suspicious.

Did he even have a tribe? He had killed his half-brother and vanished. He couldn't imagine what his mother might have been told. Kardidua was a strong and resourceful orc, but she needed the strength that had come with her mate.

Hath approached the tent slowly, bow slung over his shoulder. He set his axe down on the floor outside.

Yska sat cross legged inside her tent. The tunic hung loose over scrawny limbs. Between them bones and feathers laid in patterns. Some odd trick of the light seemed to be hiding her eyes even when she looked straight at him.

He stopped a respectful distance away.

<<I am here,>> he said.

Yska sniffed, the sound thin and sharp.

<<Sit.>>

Hath obeyed, lowering himself to the ground across from her.

 

[Pern]

Hath being who and what he was did not seem to make any difference to the Shaman. He dwarfed her, ever so much more than the others of her clan, but she seemed neither discomforted nor threatened.

The small fire in her tent lent very little light once the tent flap closed. Warmth and cooking were not the purpose of her flames.

<<You linger in our camp like a storm cloud...>> said Yska as she cracked an egg into a carved stone bowl, then began to sprinkle in powders from various satchels, <<those emotions are only good as kindling. But what kind of fire will you let them light, hmmm....>>

She tucked the bowl into the side of the fire.

<<You may ask of me three questions and I will reveal the truths offered by fate.>>

 

[Hath Charosh]

The tent felt smaller once the flap dropped behind him. Close. He could smell the herbs hitting the mixture in the bowl.

He said nothing at first because he didn’t trust his voice in this place. It felt like shadows bent in strange ways over the shaman’s hands.

Three questions.

He’d never liked magic. He had been pleased to find out that his axe - biter - had been made to chew through magic.

He shifted, broad shoulders brushing the hide wall. Even seated, he loomed.

"I do not know what to ask," he admitted.

Yska only waited.

Hath frowned, working his jaw. The emotions she spoke of - the ones he tried to ignore - pressed closer in the dark. He wanted to ask about Pern, he wanted to ask about her tribe and he wanted to ask about his own tribe.

He took a breath.

"I will ask this first," he said. "Will I see my mother again?"

 

[Pern]

Into the fire went a handful of pale blue powder that sent a spurt of flames upward with a stream of sparks. Yska hummed to herself, wafting the color smoke toward her.

In the plumes above the flames as they slowly rose toward the top of the tent to stream out through a smoke hatch, Hath would catch the brief amorphous image of his mother.

<<Your mother does not lie on a direct path...>> Yska fluttered knobby fingers with long claws through the flames before reaching into them directly and withdrawing a small bone. She neither yelped at the fire on her skin nor seemed to be burned by it at all. The bone she picked out was black with char and looked to be a small animal bone. She studied it and the way the char cracked along its surface.

<<Seeing her again relies on the paths you choose to take, but it is a narrow path and a red moon that will bring you to her presence again.>>

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath had to keep himself from bearing his tusks at the flash of blue flame. He didn't shirk, but his discomfort was etched into his face.

That smoothed out as he saw the smoke coalesce into Kardidua for the span of just one breath.

He didn't trust magic, but he didn't doubt it's existence.

Hath leaned forward and watched with renewed interest as the shaman manipulated the fire. He leaned forwards just a little.

A narrow path. A red moon.

He did not ask what that meant. Fate-talk was always woven in riddles; he’d lived long enough among his clan to know shamans rarely spoke in anything else.

He swallowed once.

"I thought… she might have passed beyond the reach of any path."

He hadn't expected an answer that made any sense. He definitely hadn't expected to see Kardidua again.

Maybe that was why the next question came to him faster than he expected.

Hath shifted, bracing his hands on his knees. He did not look away from the flames this time.

"Pern."

He paused. The words felt strangely heavy on his tongue.

"I do not know if she could ever see me as… anything more than a companion on the road."

He exhaled slowly through his nose. This almost felt wrong to ask. He was having his fortune told instead of talking to Pern, but even in their most recently conversation he had failed to understand her.

"So I ask: is there a path where she looks at me and sees more than a… friend?"

 

[Pern]

A handful of white powder over the flames this time. The fire burst brightly, but no sparks emerged. Instead trails of embers, burning brightly, fluttered up through the air and coalesced around the melding figure of Pern in the smoke. This image lingered longer before dissipating up through the smoke vent.

<<The Sun Sister's fate is a complicated web of paths...>> Yska said, turning the stone bowl with the egg inside it half way. From her side she pulled forward another larger, oblong bowl carved from wood and tossed in the bone she'd plied from the fire. Alongside it a handful of other small bones, including what appeared to be the under developed tusks of young orcs.

Yska hummed as she looked upon them, then quick as a viper reached through the fire with a blade, slicing free one of the loose tendrils of hair about Hath's face. The blade did not touch him otherwise.

She sprinkled the black hairs in and then next reached for hot embers from the fire, tossing them on top.

An acrid smell filled the tent as the embers burned through his hair. Once more, Yska wafted the smoke to inhale.

<<There is a path I see where Shadow and Sun join. Children. Clan. A new Chief...>> her shadowed gaze glinted at him, <<another where your paths diverge, never to meet again. This path will spell great suffering for you... a shadow needs a source of light, or it simply converges with the darkness.>>

<<Before both paths there is a great sundering. Death. Pain. Grief. Opportunity.>> Yska lifted the wooden bowl and gently rocked it side to side to churn its contents, <<three moons until a choice must be made.>>

 

[Hath Charosh]

This time the tusks came out. It was instinct. If he had been sharper then he might have been more animated in his reaction. Instead he simply bared his teeth at the blade.

Hath felt the heat from the embers brush his skin, smelled the acrid sting curling in the smoke. The hairs that had once been his own blackened and twisted in the fire.

The vision of Pern lingered in the smoke longer than the previous conjuration.

Hath’s jaw tightened. His hands clenched in his lap. The words Yska spoke clawed at him and he could not hide behind action or instinct.

His own shamans had been pragmatic with advice when it was called for. Old Sellaba might have slapped him across the jaw and told him to be bold and go and talk to a potential mate. Instead it was more drama and choices from Yska.

He wanted the path they walked together. Every part of him wanted the possibility to stand alongside Pern not as a guide, not as a friend, but as someone she built a life with. He wanted to bring her safety and warmth and pleasure in the darkest of nights.

And yet the other path - the one that promised pain and suffering - loomed as a possibility.

There were no words strong enough to wrestle with fate. He only nodded once.

He could feel the weight settle on his shoulders. He didn't want to know that he would suffer if they parted ways. He didn't want to be selfish and make the choice to save himself.

The next question was obvious to him.

"Can I save Pern from the suffering at the crossroads?" he asked.

If paths were complicated webs then it stood to reason that fate could be changed. Hath could never have realised that it was too late. That heartache was simply waiting to be discovered at the end of their journey.

 

[Pern]

<<No,>> Yska did not need to add further powder to the flames or mix another concoction of Seeing.

<<It is a path you both already walk. A tragedy you both will endure.>>

And that being his third question, the old Shaman clapped her hands together, <<I have spoken. Eat this.>>

She held up the stone bowl with egg and spices to him over the fire.

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath wouldn't regret asking the last question. He would never stop and accept fate. The words of a shaman could change the future on their own.

In a way, it was less unsettling to only have one serious crossroads ahead of them.

The clap of hands made him jump. The offer of food confused him.

Hath looked down at the bowl. The scent of fried egg and herbs made him instantly hungry.

"Hm."

Hath picked up the bowl and tilted his chin back. He poured the contents into his mouth and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

<<Thank you,>> he said, because being rude to another tribe's shaman was still disrespectful and likely to bring black clouds.

He stepped back out of the tent. It felt like the sky was higher than usual, the air more freshing. He took a moment to get his bearings and walked towards the camp fires to look for Pern.

 

[Pern]

Getting water with the younglings was proving to be a task unto itself. They were playful, still slightly too young to be useful otherwise. She didn't mind the play or the interruptions, but it became clear after the first trip that they wanted nothing to do with collecting water, and everything with swinging from the shoulder pole. She gave up halfway back from the second trip trying to juggle buckets in her hands and balance children on the pole over her shoulder, set the buckets down and hefted them both up to her full height.

Not that she was particularly towering as an orcess, but to them she was. They screeched and giggled, hollered and laughed as she swung them round in a circle among the tall grasses, their bare feet skirting the tops of the stalks.

Around and around they went until Pern became so dizzy she toppled over sideways and they all tumbled into the grasses laughing.

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath walked because standing still felt dangerous. His boots carried him toward the river path without thought, toward the sound of laughter riding lightly on the wind.



Thrann was a mighty hunter. The war party rushed into the long grasses together, but he was their leader. They looked to him as they stalked through cover.

Then came the thud of heavy feet. He knew that sound. He whistled for the others to come to a halt.

The dark orc.

The others feared him but Thrann was brave. He signalled for the attack.



Hath saw her before she saw him.

Pern was in the tall grass, toppled over with two younglings shrieking with delight as they clambered over her. Her laughter came freely, her hair was in a wild tangle.

The sight hit him just a little harder than than any vision in smoke.

At Hath's hip was a particularly small orcling. It clung to his leg and ineffectively thumped at his thigh.

As if he had only just noticed, Hath reached down and peeled it from his leg. He tossed the orcling aside.

Young ones were bouncy. They had to be.

<<Got him!>>

<<Yeah Thrann>>

<<Follow me!>>

Several rustling trails through the grass showed a pack of orcling rushing away through the long grasses.

Hath did not know if he believed in visions. But he believed what he saw now.


Pern, laughing with children. Pern, who should have been crushed by the weight of leading him across the content.
Pern, who had nearly been broken and still found ways to smile.

Hath watching her as if someone had tilted the world and shown him a part he had not dared to imagine.

He cleared his throat quietly.

"Pern," he said, voice low so the younglings would not spook.

One of the children popped up like a startled rabbit, beaming at him and waving both arms. These ones were older. Wary of hjm

<<Hath! Hath! We made her fall down!>>

<<I can see that,>> he said.

But his eyes were on Pern, and something in his expression had shifted. It was softer now. He wasn't thinking of choices and suffering. He was thinking of what could be.

 

[Pern]

<<You're STRONG!>> said the other youngling as it jumped to tackle Pern from behind, arms wrapped around her neck while she sat on the ground, <<I bet you can carry a HUNDRED of me!>>

It was surprising that the little one knew the value of one hundred. The education in this tribe continued to surprise her. Pern chuckled, her gaze shifting to the dark shadow approaching in the grass she knew to be Hath simply by the shape and scent of him alone. He didn't even have to say her name, but it was always reassuring to know she wasn't simply imagining things.

<<I bet,>> Pern began after wetting her lips in preparation for the switch back to orcish which had slowly become a little less of a chore to speak now that she was actively practicing daily again, <<I can carry you and Viika and both waters.>>

Hatse, the young boy orc, looked to his sister Viika with a mischievous grin, <<Nuh uh!>>

<<Yes!>> said Pern, <<Now fetch the water, shoo!>>

The two laughed as they took off with their buckets to the riverbank, well in-sight of where Pern presently sat.

She smiled after them and heaved a sigh, using the shoulder pole like a walking stick to pick herself up from the ground, "The young onesh in your mother'sh clan would not dare play like this." Her brow knitted as she watched them traipse down to the waterline and wade out to their knees, dipping the buckets.

"But I think I like thish better."

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath watched the younglings scatter toward the water, their laughter trailing behind them like birdsong. It was nothing like the tight discipline of the clan he had grown up in. They would not have gone near the water making noise. That was where the worst savanna predators would have waited.

He found himself watching her more closely than he meant to. The echo of smoke and prophecy made him think of how he could have her. He imagined her playing with their own younglings.

Damn the shaman, he thought to himself.

"No. They would not." He stepped nearer, his shadow falling long beside hers in the grass. It was the best path in his future, but he didn't want that to determine his actions. But if she was his, he could take her every night until his seed took and she was with their child.

He looked toward the river where the two small figures wrestled their buckets into the current. A faint warmth touched his expression.

"They are louder. Less afraid."

He paused, gaze returning to her.

"But I think I like it better in a way too."

For a moment he simply stood there, studying the way the evening light touched her hair, the faint flush in her cheeks from spinning and falling, the soft smile that had not quite faded yet.

He cleared his throat.

"You are good with them," he said quietly.

"You look... happy here."

The words were simple, but the meaning behind them sat heavy in his chest. It finally struck him. She had been trying to warn him more thoroughly about what Elbion would be like.

"If Elbion is so bad. We could find them again after we have visited."

 

[Pern]

There was a bittersweetness to being told she was good with children. Pern had always liked them, always thought the idea of having her own to be a lovely dream. She'd never given the thought much credence. Never believed she'd find the opportunity to start a family in Elbion.

Hath's continued words muddled her expression. There was truth to the statement. She was happy here. Not a single moment had gone by since they had been welcomed to the clan's embrace where she'd felt unwanted or like an outcast. They had taken her in as if she'd always been a part and the thought of that made her heart clench and eyes sting the longer it lingered on her mind.

But her father was not here. Her memories were not here. Her home and life were not here. They were all in Elbion.

She noted Hath used the word visited when referring to the city. As if he assumed she had no intentions of staying once she'd returned. In a flash, a brief and unusual flare of anger filled her. He continued to bring up Elbion, as if having forgotten their conversation from the night prior. A sudden urge to yell at him struck her soundly and she grit her jaw against it, swallowed it, and lost her smile entirely to the acrid taste of malcontent.

<<Come!>> Pern called to the orclings, deciding to walk away from the comment instead of address it as she moved forward to the waters where the siblings were presently engaged in a splash war, <<Water is needed at the camp. Fill your buckets!>>

<<Yes Miss Pern,>> the pair of them echoed reluctantly abandoning their fun for chore. She held the shoulderpole down for them to notch the carry-ropes onto, then lifted the filled buckets up and set the pole on her shoulders. When she turned back toward Hath, she immediately regretted the cold shoulder but did not know how to address or fix it. She usually wasn't ever like this and she didn't know what came over her.

Frowning, confused, she began to make the trek back up the riverbank and to the encampment.

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath had not expected the sting of Pern’s anger. He felt it the moment she turned her back on him.

In the wake of that glance he felt a turbulent cold down in his gut. It felt far worse than a strike or a harsh retort thrown his way would have.

He didn't understand her and that made him feel inadequate. How could he ever be good enough for her if he couldn't even understand her?

For a heartbeat he only watched her walk, the buckets swinging at her sides, the line of her shoulders tight.

Then the annoyance rose.

She had asked him to be honest. She had wanted to know what he thought. Now she walked away as if he had wronged her on purpose.

The contradiction wound something sharp in his chest and he set off after her with longer strides, closing the distance between them as they climbed up from the riverbank.

"Pern," Hath said.

"You walk like... Like I have struck you."

She did not slow. He stepped around the bucket anyway. He stepped into her path, close enough that his presence pressed against the space she tried to keep.

"You look at this place as if it is a dream you will wake from," he went on, frustration threading through the words. "You look at me the same way. Like...this is a passing."

He even closer, blocking her path without touching her. The orclings stopped behind, wide-eyed and silent.

"You stood with me through everything."

One word was never enough to convey all that they have been through. His chest rose and fell sharply and - suddenly - instead of the pragmatic, stoic hunter he was clearly a man caught in the storm of his own feelings.

The fortune teller be damned. What he felt wasn't about her words.

"I would stay by your side through anything if you would let me."

His tusks caught the riverlight as he held her gaze, breathing hard, the annoyance simmering into something much harder to ignore. What he struggled to say was there in his eyes.

"Say something, Pern. Do not just walk away from me."

 

[Pern]

Oh no.

No no no.

Pern was not at all prepared to have an argument or even a discussion. She wanted desperately to simply get on her way and do the work asked of her. That was how she'd managed her troubles in Elbion: staying busy with work. When she was upset? Work. When she was sad? Work. When things just weren't working out or working against her?

Work. Work. Work.

Her father, of course, had always provided a supportive shoulder and ear, but her troubles had mostly always been her own.

She'd never had troubles with someone who had been a long-standing fixture in her life like Hath. Not like this, anyway. She had no idea how to deal with someone who expressed wanting her as a mate. Who did not really belong in the place she called home. She wasn't even sure what she wanted out of all of this, given the strange twist of new information dropped on her like a chaotic dragon.

Pern's frown deepened. She could not make eye contact with him. A ball of anxiety began to twist in her stomach. The closer he drew to her, the more she retreated into her mind and even recoiled physically out of rising discomfort with the entire encounter.

"I don't know." It was all she could manage to respond with.

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath felt her shrink before she even spoke. He knew her too well. It was in the subtle retreat of her shoulders and the way her gaze dropped away from his.

It pulled at him in two directions at once. Part of him wanted to press, to drag the truth out of her. The other felt the hitch of her breath and the way her fingers tightened around the shoulderpole and knew he was crossing a line.

Her quiet reply hit harder than an argument would have.

For a long moment he stood still. His jaw was set in tension. His frustration clawed for some kind of release. Seeing her fold inward like that made something else rise to the surface, something warm and protective.

He stepped back half pace, giving her space without retreating entirely. He folded his arms across his chest.

"Well...why not?" he asked.

His voice was quiet now. She wasn't the same as him. The people of this tribe were not the same either. He could see that in the faces of the young orcs. If she was of his tribe this would have led to snarling and shouting. Some heavy fucking or some heavy fighting would have followed and the tribe would have turned a blind eye to either.

He took another half step back and unfolded his arms. He ran a hand through his hair, annoyed and confused. Wanting her and wanting clarity and furious at himself for ambushing her like this and frustrated at her dodging questions. All of those at the same time.

 

[Pern]

The orclings lingered, wary of Hath. Though the tribe had welcomed him as well, even come to trust him, their history with other orc tribes such as his was not easily forgotten. They looked on at Pern through the grasses, huddled to each other with the older in a protective stance of the younger.

Pern frowned pityingly at them and gently shook her head, <<It is okay,>> she told them quietly, gently, <<do not be scared. Go back to the camp, I will return soon.>>

Still unsure, she nodded at them with a light grunt of encouragement to go. Small gestures she'd picked up along the way from not just this tribe, but Hath's as well.

When they departed, her unease returned. It was still difficult to look at him even though he had given ground and his flare of temper seemed to have waned.

"It ish a dream," she said after a long pause of silence, her voice still quiet, "my home ish not here. It ish in Elbion, with my father." The weight of the water pails seemed to be getting heavier ... or maybe that was her regrets and uncertainties.

"You..." her brow knit. She was not a creature of sharp words or emotions. She had been raised to be careful of her strength, her size, and that which the people of Elbion feared the most: the savage rage they believed to live inside every orc. Anger had never been an option.

"You shpeak ash if I would only vishit my home," her eyes found him finally and she shook her head, "no, Hath. That ish not what I intend. I have a life in Elbion. A job. A purposhe. A home. My only family. I will shtay there."

Even if it wasn't where she belonged. But who knew where that really was? Too orcish to belong in Elbion. Too human to belong with orcs. Surely he knew how different she was from tribal orcs? Their culture and way was not part of her. It was not in her blood as it was in his.

"You shay you would shtay with me... but Hath," her frown deepened, her brow knit more, "I could not cage you in the wallsh of Elbion. You desherve to be free."

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath watched the orclings go, their small bodies swallowed by the tall grass. He felt regret for the way they had looked at him.

Then words landed like stones dropped one at a time into cold water. A dream. Her home. Her father. CAging him.

He took it all in without interrupting. It was not in him to flinch away from hard truths. But this felt different. This was Pern pulling away.

"Oh."

His brows drew down, the line of his jaw tightening. He stepped closer slowly enough not to startle her. He couldn't go from angry and defiant to playing a sad hound that had been kicked.

"I see. You were trying to tell me. I did not listen."

His gaze looked away. He swallowed and looked back.

"I do not want to lose you."

 

[Pern]

A small nod in affirmation. She was trying to tell him, before. He hadn't listened or understood, but it hardly mattered which now.

She felt the sorrow in his last words and it struck her in the chest quite sharply.

"I..." she still did not know her own feelings for him. It was a mess of knots of her feelings for everything that had developed over the last several moons.

"I care about you, Hath, sho much." And she would be sad to part ways from him. More than she presently knew or could comprehend, but... "I do not know the right anshwer."

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath’s jaw tightened. It wasn't in anger, but in holding himself steady. Her words landed hard. It was more than he’d had any right to expect with how he had behaved. And yet it was still not enough to quiet the ache in him.

"You think you must have an answer," he said. "And I have pushed you for one."

Hath looked aside for a moment, ashamed of himself.

Before she could shift the weight of the filled buckets again, Hath reached out and closed one broad hand over the pole laid across her shoulders.

His fingers wrapped around the worn wood with effortless strength, taking just enough of the burden that Pern felt the sudden lightness through her frame.

He stepped closer. He could smell the familiar scent of her. It was wrapped up in so many memories and feelings. They had both changed, been changed together. They had changed on another and grown together.

He had crossed half the world with her. Fought beside her. Bled beside her. He knew the shape of her step, the scent of your skin and hair, the way her voice changed with her feelings.

His other hand settled lightly on the far side of the pole, guiding it into a more comfortable position.

Grey eyes met hers, steady and unflinching. There was power in him, always had been, but none of it pressed on her now. It only held the shape of safety. A silent apology and promise that he would try to share any weight she carried."

"It would be so easy for me to pretend," he said. If she took him, he would wake up with her warmth beside him everyone morning and he could pretend he wouldn't have to let go.

"Pretend I did not want you or pretend no hard choices."

"I will not force you to choose. I will listen. We will decide together?"

He leaned in just enough for his forehead to almost touch hers, stopping shy of it. He offeree the intimacy.

He drew back a breath’s width, searching her eyes.

"Let me walk with you. No choices today."

 

[Pern]

She did not retreat from him this time. Not that she had really ever felt threatened by Hath, or scared of him, but the levels of discomfort at his intentions as of late had spiked. It was less of a physical concern and more mental... emotional. Too many things happening beyond her scope.

Pern still felt deeply naive to so many things, but at least she had the self awareness to admit it.

Standing there, unsmiling, Pern listened and watched him warily as he worked through her response. When he approached and offered his forehead she could feel the stilted escalation of her heartbeat and swallowed a lump of uncertainty. A forehead touch wasn't necessarily limited to mated pairs - she'd learned it was a sign of care, endearment, and a range of loving gestures between close friends, family, or couples. She'd done it to him once before, at the halfling's home as he struggled against the demon within him.

And she realized she still cared as much about him now, probably more, than she had then. Pern would take that journey all over again for him if she had to.

He moved back before she could return it and make contact. Before her spinning thoughts could make a decision.

Making choices together sounded much better than the alternative of... whatever had lead them to this very moment. She did not want anymore of those unsettling encounters. She wanted to be comfortable and happy in his presence. Pern nodded in agreement to him, her golden eyes glancing shortly at his hands that held on to her shoulderpole.

"I can carry thish, you know." A small smile appeared at that.

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath did not release the pole. His hands shifted only enough to ease the strain a little further, his knuckles brushing the fabric at her shoulders.

A low sound escaped him. It was not quite a laugh, more like a quiet breath that warmed the air between them.

That smile warmed him more. They didn't need to talk on it any further. Which was good, because Hath had exhausted his vocabulary and ability to express himself.

"I know you can," he said. "I could carry you and the buckets up this bank."

There was probably some sappy metaphor about shouldering the burden he could have made.

Instead he released the pole. He smiled back at Pern in that way he had adapted, never quite flashing too much tusk.

Then he closed his eyes, settled his hand on her shoulder and brought his forehead to hers. He held her there just a moment, drawing in a deep breath.

Then he sighed and stepped back. Something had settled inside him. He still felt a little echo of embarrassment for how he had acted. It all seemed so simple when he looked at it objectively.

He could think about Elbion later.

Shari had appeared behind him, meandering down from the camp. One of the younglings had clearly run off and spun a quick tale and she had come to check on them.

 

[Pern]

"That'sh, uhh," Pern shook her head with a look of bewildered amusement, "not nesheshary."

Of course he could carry the buckets and herself all at once. No one was doubting that for a second.

She was becoming more accustomed to these little gestures and finding them to be rather nice. It had taken some time to remove the image of humans kissing from her mind when she witnessed orcs performing the head-touch, which had wrongly identified it for her as something strictly between mates. This was nearly like a hug in her mind now, but not to be mistaken for an actual hug.

To be fair, the gestures were a little more complicated. Maybe not as complicated as human courtship could be, but when one didn't know the culture from childhood, it all sounded or looked like gibberish.

As they crested the river banks Pern looked up to find Shari heading their way with a look on her face she could not quite figure.

<<All is well?>> Shari asked, clearly no stranger to males and their tempers. She looked a mother hen ready to go to battle in her stance.

<<Yes,>> Pern replied with a nod, <<all is well.>>

 

[Hath Charosh]

Hath dipped his head to Shari in acknowledgment, though he did not step away from Pern.

<<All is well,>> he echoed after Pern, his voice even, calm. Shari’s sharp look bounced between them before softening with a knowing hum that did not need words. She seemed satisfied for now.

Hath fell into step beside Pern. As close as he could be without taking a bucket tk the back of the head.

Fires still burned. The sun here seemed to take a lazy route, flirting beneath the horizon. True darkness came slowly, but soon the camp would draw back and set guards. Youngling would be contained.

<<You should come and eat!>> Shari said to them both. Hath didn't know if that was out of courtesy or to keep an eye on them. He stepped away from Pern and set his gear down.

Varga and his extended family had logs arranged around a fire. Hath took a seat. Fish was on wooden planks, having been smoked over the fire.