Heart of a Wick [Memory, Closed]

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Fishing villages, mining towns, and the mineral-rich border with the Kingdom of Anaxas are highlights of the Western Erg.

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Faizra pezre Taci
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Fri Jul 12, 2019 8:32 am

Mid Afternoon, 21 Roalis, 2713
On the Turga
Faizra nodded vigorously and giggled at Oisin’s pronouncement that everyone had to go somewhere, and even Ibo let out a soft, cheerful snort. It was hard to tell exactly where the older wick fell - whether he really appreciated toilet humor, whether he just appreciated his daughter, or, well, both.

Neither Faizra nor Ibo seemed to mind the silence at all; the only sound in the river was the quiet noise of the paddles, dipping in and out of the water. If Oisin sat and listened, really listened, he would hear a whole orchestra behind it: the soft splashing of a distance current on a rock, the sort of burbling noise even the Turga made in places, the faint buzzing of flies, the occasional noisy croak of a river frog. It wasn’t quiet, not really, not if you knew the Turga.

“Jerky?” Faizra asked about the new and unfamiliar word, her gaze focused forward on the river. This time, at least, whether because he didn’t know or because he didn’t intend to interrupt, Ibo didn’t supply a translation. Oisin’s explanation was enough though, and Faizra nodded vigorously. “I haven’t had ‘t like that,” she said.

Faizra laughed happily at Oisin’s joke, still paddling steadily, her voice bright and cheerful.

“A snack ‘s a food?” Faizra asked. She had the gist of it, at least, enough that the joke had been funny, but the slang word escaped her, and she assumed it was some specific mercenary dish, or maybe a foreigner one. “It tastes good or bad?”

At this more serious question (food being always serious around age 12 or so), the small mugrobi witch glanced back over her shoulder at the mercenary in their boat. She let out a loud, startled yelp at the sight of him, and fumbled with her paddle. One moment it was in her hands; the next it was sweeping past the boat on the currents, bobbing and floating and smacking once against the side of the boat, the quick brutal waters of the Turga dragging it back -

But Ibo was there, and his hand flashed out into the water and scooped up the paddle, dropping it at his feet, water flying from it to fleck against Oisin. His hands went back to his own paddle, and for a moment, muscles straining softly, he worked the boat on his own, bringing the canoe to stillness against a cluster of water weeds. The boat shifted, turning slightly with the force of the currents, but held still.

“Epa’ma, Da,” Faizra said, ducking her head in shame, eyes wide.

Ibo said something in response in Mugrobi, and Faizra nodded, looking even more deeply ashamed now, squirming slightly on the bench.

“Ea?” Ibo asked.

“Ea, da,” Faizra promised. “Ep’ama. Domea domea.” She added something else in Mugrobi.

Ibo said something else, a long-ish sentence, and Faizra nodded again, but this time she looked relieved, brightening up. “Ea!” She agreed.

Ibo turned to Oisin, and grinned. “I have told her ‘f she drops ‘t again, she‘ll make a new one. Would y’?” He extended the paddle forward to Oisin, gesturing for him to pass it to a sheepish looking Faizra, reaching back with open hands. The paddle was hand-carved and heavy, wet from the river water, but it was smooth to the touch, well-used like the boat and the rest of their things, worn down by the steady grip of strong hands and the hard work of navigating the river.

The immediate drama of the almost-lost paddle over, Faizra stared at Oisin a little more, having not remotely forgotten her original concerns. “You are sick?” She asked him, touching one hand to the stripe of skin above the other elbow, where Oisin’s skin went abruptly from dark to shockingly light. She stared unabashedly at his knees as well, her own attitude about overall nudity made clear by her distinct lack of clothing, even if she apparently wasn’t used to lighter skin.

Ibo snorted with laughter and didn’t help, working his paddle into the water once more. Without even a word from him, Faizra turned industriously back to her own paddling, the two moving in easy harmony once more. The small canoe, still stalled against the clump of river weeds Ibo had them navigated into, swung back out into the water. It began to move once more, as smoothly as if it had never stopped, sliding steadily up the river once more beneath the bright hot sun.

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Oisin Ocasta
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Sat Jul 13, 2019 2:43 pm

21st of Roalis, 2713
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It was one thing to feel as if you lacked the kind of appeal that women were looking for in a man; it was another thing entirely to have one scream at the very sight of you, and start dropping things into the river in shock. Not that Faizra was old enough to be the kind of audience that Oisin strove to appeal to, but still: as if Oisin didn't already feel self-conscious enough sitting here all exposed, a spindly sapling by comparison to the mighty redwood of a man standing behind him, now he was apparently such a horrifying shirtless sight that he was frightening children.

Oisin wished he could shrink smaller and collapse in on himself as the conversation between father and daughter flew over his head, both figuratively and literally, though Ibo's much-appreciated translation put him ever so slightly more at ease - or perhaps it was just the smile. Dutifully, he nodded along with Ibo's request - was it even possible to refuse a request from this man? Even his own daughter seemed to do as she was asked with minimal protest, and that was quite a feat with a child of her age, based on Oisin's traumatic past experiences - and turned towards Faizra, reaching out to pass along the rescued oar as instructed.

Faizra's question froze him in place. You are sick. Was he sick? Oisin took a quick mental inventory. Did he feel sick? Did he feel faint? Was there any pain or numbness, strange sensations, strange upsets? What might he possibly have contracted? Had he been out in the sun too long? Had he not been drinking enough? What could he be sick with that Faizra might have noticed? Was there something wrong with his eyes? Had he turned green? Were his eyes off-colour? Were there spots? Cysts? Was he bleeding from somewhere he shouldn't have been? Some sort of parasite, or river plague that he'd managed to catch by -

His eyes glimpsed the band of transitionary tan part way down his extended arm, and realisation clicked into place. "Oh! Oh, no, that's just -"

That's just what? Oisin's mind froze in confusion, looking around itself for some sort of explanation for the process of tanning. It made sense that Faizra would be confused by it: it wouldn't have surprised him if he was the first person without Mugrobi colouring that she had spoken to, and certainly, the odds of her seeing enough of such foreigners to notice tan lines seemed fairly slim. But how to explaining? A tan was just something that happened. It happened to everyone. It just was. If a child even noticed the changes, you could just shrug it off, point out everyone else's tan marks, and normalise it that way. But how in the autumn blazes did you do that when you were the only pale-skinned person for miles?

For a moment, Oisin tried to remember how he'd come to understand the process. Certainly, it wouldn't have been something that was ever explained to him. Unlike Faizra, Oisin had never had an Ibo there to offer reassurance, guidance, and wisdom. He'd mostly had to fend for himself, a childhood spent shifting from one authority figure to the next, never staying longer than his usefulness lasted. He supposed the same was true even now, the mercenaries the latest in a long line of failed attempts at discovering a found family. He wondered what it was like, being able to rely on a parent like that, knowing that there would always be answers whenever you needed them. It was one of the experiences he had witnessed in others that truly felt like a detriment, a void in his life that he'd never successfully filled. It wasn't quite envy that Oisin felt, more of a concerned hope, that Faizra understood and appreciated how fortunate she was to have a father of the sort that Ibo seemed to be.

But Faizra's question hadn't been directed at Ibo, the towering tree of warm, smiling wisdom. It had been directed at the anxious birch sapling of fumbling panic: but he would do his best to approximate something that sounded like wisdom none the less. "Mugrobi are born ready for the sun," he tried, the best explanation he could come up with given the circumstances, "But my people aren't. There is more cold and more rain where I am from, so when the sun finally arrives in the summer, we have to change and adapt. The more sun we see, the more Mugrobi our skin becomes." He gestured vaguely in the direction of his chest. "This is because my clothes have been in the way, and so my skin has not seen the sun quite as much."

Content with his explanation - perhaps even a little proud of himself for having managed to figure out something remotely sensible to say - Oisin waited until he had been deprived of the extended oar, and then settled back into his seated position, a little less hesitantly before. He still wasn't particularly comfortable about being sat shirtless, but if that situation was going to end up being a topic of conversation, he supposed there wasn't much point trying to shy away from it.

"Oh -" he added, recalling the earlier question that had been so rudely interrupted by Faizra's abject terror at the sight of him. "- and a snack? That's just small eats. The food you have when it's not a meal. Treats, a piece of fruit, things like that."

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Faizra pezre Taci
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Sat Jul 13, 2019 10:14 pm

Mid Afternoon, 21 Roalis, 2713
On the Turga
Faizra stared patiently at Oisin, hands extended for the paddle, as he stared back at her. There was a long very awkward moment where the oar was too far away for the small witch to reach, and the older wick was just sort of staring down at himself. Faizra was increasingly convinced he was sick, and she was thoroughly prepared to be superior with her Da for bringing a sick wick home, even if it was just the sort of thing he’d do. Daoa’d told her once that Da liked strays, but she said it with this smile in her voice, and Faizra knew it was a hama sort of thing from that, and she hadn’t asked any more.

Oisin said he wasn’t sick, but he didn’t seem to be able to offer any other explanation for a long moment, and Faizra’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. Sickness was bad – everybody knew the foreign mercenaries had foreign diseases, and it might swamp over her home like a flood, leaving everyone shaky and pale in odd places. Faizra wasn’t exactly sure what kind of disease would make you look like your skin didn’t fit, but she was quite sure it couldn’t be good.

Faizra scrunched up her nose at the beginning of Oisin’s explanation, which seemed like it took a long time coming, but – she supposed it made sense. “Oh,” Faizra scratched her bare head, squinting at Oisin. It was true that the places that were darker in color were the parts that would be out when he was standing in the sun, Faizra supposed; she felt a bit skeptical about all of it, and looked up at her Da for confirmation.

Ibo nodded slightly.

Faizra nodded as well, relieved. “Y’ might wan’ t’ – not have yer clothes in the way s’ much,” she suggested, smiling at Oisin. She took the oar from him, cheerfully.

“Oh, I like snacks then!” Faizra grinned back over her shoulder at Oisin as she paddled, cheerful. “Fair benny, snacks. Snacks. Never had a name for ‘em.”

Ibo laughed again, softly under his breath.

The small canoe powered steadily up the river, the two Mugrobi navigating steadily. At some point, in response to some unspoken signal Oisin would have no chance of understanding, Ibo stopped the canoe against some roots, and Faizra laid her paddle down, rose, and scrambled back along the canoe, neatly avoiding Oisin without him moving at all, although her field seemed to almost greet his, a sort of cheerful nudge.

Ibo let her take hold of the root, and then climbed forward in the canoe himself, one hand clasping Oisin’s shoulder in a friendly way as he passed. His field stayed to himself, brushing past Oisin’s without actively engaging.

From there, Faizra steered. There were a few small initial mistakes, abrupt paddling and one instance of frantically shouted Mugrobi, but the canoe never really even rocked, and soon they were moving just as steadily up the river. The sun drew down overhead, slow and steady, the worst heat of the day fading and breaking.

Around them, although it was still only afternoon, the river seemed to begin to come to life. Frogs chirped, insects emerged in still-greater numbers, fish began to flash against the surface of the water, seeking their own meals (or, at least, snacks). The whole color of the river seemed to change – the whole color of the world around them seemed to change, the bright pale shades of day becoming almost more vivid, not just as soft as they’d be when evening fell.

They had been traveling up the river nearly an hour when Ibo glanced back over his shoulder. “Faizra?” He asked.

“Oes, Da,” Faizra stood up on the back bench and let out a blisteringly loud, sharp whistle, a distinctive trilling pattern.

“An'?” Ibo asked.

Faizra wrinkled her nose, and let out a second, a slightly different pattern, but equally loud.

The canoe kept going, breaking ever so slightly off of the main river. Around a bend – nearly through a thicket of trees and branches, sharp things that would scratch at Oisin – and they emerged into a large pool of still water, much like the one outside of big-tree-in-the-river’s-bend.

This one, however, wasn’t empty.

Distant, tied between the two shores, floated an incredible series of rafts and boards, lashed together to make a floating encampment, like a Manatse at a much smaller scale. Small, ramshackle huts perched here and there, eight or ten in total. It was full of people too, smoke drifting up into the air, the smell of food wafting into the late afternoon, dark-skinned men and women moving too and fro.

“Faizra!” Someone waved an arm from the water, and Faizra looked over longingly at the sight of five or six children swimming like fish in the water. There was a chatter of Tek, and Oisin didn't need to speak the language to guess that it was something about how nice the water was. She looked back at the dock, paddle moving steadily, guiding the canoe to bump lightly against a long pier that jutted out into the water.

Ibo reached forward and caught it, wrapping a rope from the pier around his wrist and beginning to tie the canoe up.

“Y’ can go,” he told Faizra, adding something in Tek.

“Ne,” Faizra shook her head. “Ent gon’ to go ‘fore we’re done.”

Ibo turned back to the rope, but not before Oisin, at least, would see the broad, proud smile on his face, big enough that Oisin could almost feel the warmth in his chest.

There was a burst of Tek from the pier, and then a small unclothed boy sprinting down the rough wood towards them. Ibo let out a loud whoop, releasing the now-tied rope and catching the boy as he flung himself off the pier at the older man. Ibo laughed, standing in a fluid motion and swinging the boy around in a circle off the pier and boat. The boy latched on to Ibo’s neck, and stared with unabashed curiosity at Oisin as Ibo murmured to him.

“That’s Habi,” Faizra said, crouched on the bottom of the boat working to untie the knots that held the crates of supplies in place. The little boy looked up at his name and Faizra made a face at him, leaving him laughing. “M’ brunno. He’s the littlest.”

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Oisin Ocasta
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Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:31 am

21st of Roalis, 2713
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Oisin hadn't expected Ibo and Faizra's village to be so far. It was naive of him, he supposed: anyone who had lived in Mugroba as long as he should have been able to comprehend the vast distances that separated everything from everything else. Yet it was such a strange - no, foreign - concept for someone from Anaxas, especially from Old Rose Harbor. True, Anaxas wasn't exactly small: while he'd never been, he knew that Brunnhold and Vienda were several days away, and even somewhere close by like Hullwen would still take you all day on foot. But it wasn't just about the distance, it was about scale, and purpose. Some of the villages Oisin had encountered here, there were single buildings in the Old Rose with a higher population. You could have piled everyone from the big-tree-in-the-river’s-bend market into one of the taverns Oisin had worked in back there, and still have enough chairs left over to build a fairly comprehensive chair fort. There were people in the Rose who lived close enough to the communal markets to piss onto the stalls out of their bedroom windows; get them drunk enough, and some of them even did. To travel so far for something that Oisin had only ever known as a readily accessible convenience, was a notion that he found utterly alien.

Yet it was worth the wait. A market puzzle-pieced into being by lashed-together rafts had been impressive enough, but this? Oisin had heard the term houseboat before, though had always doubted that the reality would ever resemble the image that name conjured in his mind. The sight before him revised those doubts: this was an entire settlementboat, or settlementboats, a hamlet afloat, stretching from one bank to the other. Oisin's breath was stolen, his eyes wide and mouth hung open in wonder as father and daughter rowed him closer. It wasn't just the structure, either: the sight before him was alive, an entire family or families milling about, doing what people did without a care in the world, as if a home afloat on the water was the most normal thing, and not something a person should be in awe of every waking moment of the day.

Oisin's mind had not abandoned him completely, however. As the canoe moved slowly closer, he heeded Faizra's advice, tugging on at least a few items of his discarded clothing to conceal the apparently frightening condition of his sun-stained arms. Just in time too, he discovered: as Ibo attended to fastening the boat in place, Oisin was in the process of securing his dignity in place with his belt, and finished just in time to grab onto the canoe for stability as it began to sway from the arrival of the child-sized projectile. Cautiously, Oisin made his way to his feet - you couldn't live in Old Rose Harbor and not be at least a little comfortable keeping your feet beneath you on a boat, but with Oisin's clothes freshly dry, he wasn't in a mood to go taking reckless risks - which brought him to somewhere around eye level with the new arrival. Habi, he had heard Faizra say.

"Junta, Habi," Oisin offered warmly, his expression settling into an easy smile. He wasn't sure if Habi was old enough to understand or to speak - gauging the age of children had never been his strong suit - but that was no reason to forget his manners. For a moment, he wondered how long it had been since he'd smiled so easily, and so readily. Life with the mercenaries hadn't exactly cultivated that kind of reaction from him; but then, life in the Old Rose hadn't exactly been sunshine and fond memories either. A painful notion latched in his mind like a tangle of thorns. Was he an unhappy person? He wouldn't have ever described himself as such before now, but feeling the atmosphere around him, the relaxed contentment of people living their lives in the company of family, it was hard now not to regard himself in that way. Certainly, he'd never known happiness like the kind he'd seen on Habi's face as he hurled himself at his father.

Oisin turned back to Faizra, and away from his thoughts, eager to distract himself from them before they blossomed into anything more. "If Habi is the youngest, how many other brothers and sisters do you have? Is everyone here your family, or are there many families, like a tribe?"
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Faizra pezre Taci
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Wed Jul 17, 2019 3:22 pm

Late Afternoon, 21 Roalis, 2713
A Floating Settlement, The Turga
Habi certainly didn’t answer the question of whether he could speak. He stared at Oisin over his father’s shoulder, chubby little arms clinging tight to the older man, then buried his face against Ibo.

Ibo chuckled, rubbing his son’s back and murmuring to him.

Habi’s head lifted and his face lit up.

“Two,” Faizra said cheerfully. She shot a quick longing glance at the swimmers in the water, then went diligently back to her unknotting. “Ife ‘n Zaala,” she explained. “Ife comes to th’ market sometimes too but I’m a better paddler than he is,” she smirked with all the cheerful arrogance of a bigger sister, but there was an obvious fondness to it.

There was a quick, forceful motion of Ibo’s arms, and Habi was flying up into the air, shrieking with joy, squealing.

Ibo turned beneath him, quick and lithe, looking away as it utterly unconcerned with his flying son. Oisin would see, though, the strong arms held in taut readiness, the sense of his body like a coiled spring - in case.

Habi flew up and down and his little arms coiled nearly around his father’s neck, catching him. If the force of his grip choked Ibo, the mugrobi wick gave no sign; instead he roared with pride and laughter, and Habi wrapped his little legs as far as they could go around his father’s sides, clinging to him like a monkey, shrieking still with delight.

With his son now not taking up his arms, Ibo went back to the work of unpacking the boat, moving as easily with his son’s weight on his back as he had before.

“An’ then - all t’gether,” Faizra continued as if there was nothing at all unusual about what had happened, her father hurling her toddler brother into the air above the hard wooden boat and the water beneath. Probably there wasn’t, “it’s - well, Gitgka, ‘course. Then Da’s beati, two, m’ dabeati, plus - eh, well, Nuru pezre Subira passed on, she was t’ oldest from Gitgka, b’ her hama still lives ‘ere ‘n their bochi, though they ent bochi n’ more.”

Faizra’s hands moved steadily as she explained (or tried to, at least), never pausing for even a moment in their work. ”An’,” Faizra continued, cheerfully, “Gitgka’s brunno, course, and his son ‘n them all, and - uh - fami, oes. Kint, ye chen?” She shrugged her small strong shoulders.

Ibo was carrying one of the heavy crates to the dock, settling it down from the canoe without so much as rocking the thing, his movements smooth and even and effortless. “Ye’ll give him a headache, nanabo,” he called.

“He asked!” Faizra grinned at Oisin.

Whatever Ibo might have meant to say was lost when he looked up again.

The movement of the settlement hadn’t stopped, not really. The children playing in the water hadn’t been the only ones to acknowledge Faizra and Ibo; there had been waves and greetings called from the houses and boards and returned too, and plenty of eyes on Oisin as well.

But the first to approach, apart from Habi, was a slender woman, sharp and swift as a reed, a soft sway to her hips, her head wrapped in bright colorful fabric, heavy earrings peeking out beneath. She wore a breastband and another brightly colored bit of cloth, wrapped around her hips like a skirt. Her eyes were on Ibo, with barely any attention to spare even for Faizra or Habi.

Faizra snorted with all the contemptuous impatience of a twelve year old righteously disgusted by her parents. “They’re always like this,” she told Oisin, superior. She rose and reached forward, plucking Habi off her father’s back. After a moment of contemplation, she shoved him into Oisin’s arms. She told him a word in Tek that Oisin would recognize as a command to stay.

Habi squirmed, scowling up at the wick, but unless Oisin dropped him he’d stay put, shoving a dirty thumb into his mouth.

“You’d think it’d been maw,” Faizra continued, untying the last of the crates. “Not jus’ since mornin’.”

Ibo stepped out of the boat, onto the dock, as if he couldn’t wait those last few minutes for the woman to reach him. He looked at her as if the sun and moon rose and set in her eyes, as if she were the dawn and dusk, as if nothing but her existed in all the world. He wrapped his arms around her, and she hers around him. There was a quiet murmur of speech, maybe Tek, maybe Mugrobi, Ibo’s lower voice and her higher one, but no words as Oisin could make out, except maybe maja’wa. Once, her eyes lifted to the pale-skinned mercenary, but for the most part her attention was utterly focused on Ibo, and his on her.

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Oisin Ocasta
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Fri Jul 19, 2019 5:34 pm

21st of Roalis, 2713
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His mind was still reeling from the journey that Faizra had just taken him on, a series of words that almost sounded like words, but that held no tangible meaning for him. Gitgka he understood well enough, though more for its use as a nickname for one of the elderly merchant back in Old Rose Harbor. The rest was hazy, definitely siblings of someone, but Oisin had quickly lost count. Apparently, Faizra's family was as haphazardly lashed together as where they lived, equal parts fascinating, enticing, and confusing.

And then a child had been pressed into his arms. Oisin might have just been handed an armful of vipers, if the expression on his features was anything to go by. Oisin had encountered infants before; entertained them, even, bounced them on his knee, pulled faces at them when no one else was looking. But this was different. He'd never held a child before: that was something friends and families did, and there had never been a mother who thought of Oisin as either. He had seen people do it, he understood the premise, and yet here in the moment, his mind turned into a vacant void, slowly flooding with a rising sense of panic. Habi was heavier than he would have expected, a testament both to his ignorance and to Ibo's strength, having thrown the boy into the air with such ease. Habi didn't want to be there, either, something that was all too evident on his face. Oisin was reminded of a time when he'd helped to subdue a stray cat, one equally displeased at the idea of being held by Oisin. Hopefully, Habi didn't have the same array of claws and teeth.

Making matters worse was Oisin's circumstance. It was one thing to be stood holding an infant, and be filled with fear and worry that you might drop the child and do them harm. But, unless Habi somehow inverted and landed on his head, there was little more that the ground could do save contribute a few bumps and splinters. But Oisin wasn't standing on the ground. He was afloat, on an unsteady surface that felt increasingly precarious beneath his feat. If he dropped Habi, the child might land on the drifting planks of his buoyant home. He might also miss, or roll, or bounce, or crawl, and end up toppling headlong into the river. Oisin's clothes were barely dry, and somehow he doubted that, under those circumstances, his leaping into the water to save one of Ibo's children would be seen as quite so heroic this time around.

Habi didn't want to be held by the mercenary, and that was fine. He didn't have to be content, just stationary. Oisin contemplated his options. Habi was too large to be held like a baby, and honestly Oisin was relieved by that: he'd seen enough people chastised for not supporting the necks of babies well enough that, knowing his luck, he'd probably have let the child's head snap clean off. The way that Ibo had held Habi seemed easy enough, but that relied on the child's cooperation, something Habi wasn't inclined to give. Instead, Oisin indulged the boy's squirming, let him twist around in his arms until he was facing away from Oisin, back against the mercenary's chest. One hand beneath the boy's legs for support, and the other across his chest, Oisin stood there awkwardly, transformed into makeshift furniture, aiming Habi towards his parents in the hopes that it would calm him down.

Of course, that too afforded Oisin with the opportunity to watch mother and father interact, to see the way they looked at each other, so see them drawn to each other's embrace like rain towards the ground, urgent and inevitable. They're always like this, Faizra had said, and Oisin could believe it. His heart rose and sank, broke and swelled, all at once, a confusing medley of joy, envy, sadness, and satisfaction. She was as striking and beautiful as he was, a mother goddess to his god of strength, two perfect people at the heart of a sprawling tangle of family. For as long as he could remember, Oisin had understood the world in terms of stories. Every person, every object, every thing in the world had a story, had a past and a future, a prologue that set the scene, past chapters that defined who and what and why they were, and chapters as yet unread that would reveal what they would become. You seldom got to read someone's whole story, and with Ibo and Taci - if Oisin was understanding the construct of Mugrobi names correctly - he was certainly joining their story well into the middle of their narrative, but it didn't matter. Their story was a love story, and if such a tale did not stir emotions in you, it was a sure sign that you had become dead inside.

"It must be nice," Oisin uttered aloud. It had escaped as a reflection on Ibo and Taci - It must be nice to have someone who looks at you that way, who can't bear to be apart from you like that - but somehow he doubted their daughter would share his reverence for their gross romance; and so he redirected, twisting the intention behind the words into a different direction. "Having a big family, I mean. Not just knowing where you came from, but knowing that people will always be there. Knowing that you will never be alone."
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Faizra pezre Taci
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Fri Jul 19, 2019 8:26 pm

Late Afternoon, 21 Roalis, 2713
A Floating Settlement, The Turga
Habi squirmed about obligingly in Oisin’s arms, but ended up settling with his bare back against the older wick’s chest, his chubby small legs dangling over the supporting hand. If he glared suspiciously up at Oisin, he did it without kicking too aggressively, and he seemd more or less content to watch his parents for a few moments.

Faizra stood up from the last crate, checked the floor of the canoe with a quick, expert glance, then began to unload them onto the makeshift dock. “He ent gon’ t’ bite you,” she told Oisin. “Prolly. He don’ have enough teeth for it t’ hurt, anyway.” There was a little cheerful glimmer of mischief in her tone, and the self-satisfied little smirk on her face, while it might be a clue, was certainly not enough to be confident on.

Faizra was in the midst of shifting another crate to the dock when Oisin spoke again, and Faizra looked over at him. She paused, frowning a little, as if trying to understand what he meant, still holding the crate of what looked like a root vegetable, wet on the bottom where the river had lapped at them, but mostly large and brown and knobby, hints of purple peeking through here and there. “Oes…?” Faizra said, finally, confusion in her voice. “… ent y’ got a fami?” She asked, setting the crate down on the dock. It was almost like she couldn’t imagine what he had suggested – as if the idea of being alone had never even occurred to her.

Habi let out a loud, abrupt wail and Faizra clucked her tongue against her teeth, expertly taking her baby brother back from Oisin and propping him on her hip. He clung to her possessively, and glared at Oisin.

“Wha’s this?” Faizra asked Habi, raising her eyebrows. “Ent y’ got any manners?” She sounded, Oisin would notice, more than a little like her father, and she managed the heavy weight of the young boy with the same ease she had with the paddle and the crates alike. “Didja even say junta, Habi? Mm?”

Habi shoved his thumb back into his mouth.

Faizra grinned at Oisin. “Don’ worry, ‘fore long you won’t be able to get him off yeh. He’s like a tick,” she rubbed the short curly hair on her brother’s head, and Oisin felt her glamour pulse outwards, soothing and comforting. She was young – it was still a weak glamour, as any wick child’s would be - but it carried those emotions well enough all the same. “Y’ can try wi’ yer glamour, f’you like,” Faizra suggested. She said it almost apologetically, as if she wasn’t sure why he hadn’t already done it, as if it was so obvious that she had been almost unsure how to even suggest it.

“I'll take him,” Taci was there, abruptly; her feet were bare against the wood, and she moved nearly without a sound, as graceful up close as she had been from a distance. She brushed Faizra’s head with a kiss and a gentle, loving hand, and scooped Habi up from her arms. The boy wrapped his arms eagerly around her neck, and Taci smiled down at him, rubbing his back with her hand.

“Good to meet you, Oisin Ocasta. My name is Taci,” there was a musical lilt to Taci’s voice, but otherwise she spoke almost without an accent, certainly without the strong Mugrobi Tek sound that lay heavy under Faizra’s words, and even under Ibo’s. She turned slightly, rocking the boy, and Oisin would see the handle of a knife against the curve of her spine, tucked neatly against her back.

The canoe rocked slightly as Ibo lowered himself back into it, and he and Faizra both kept shifting crates to the dock, one by one, until nothing was left in the boat. Faizra scrambled out, and made her way down to the end of the pier, tying a few more expert-looking knots to secure the boat in place. Ibo hoisted a crate, then a second, and began to carry them along the rickety-looking wood to the village.

Habi struggled, and Taci smiled at him. “Wit’ yer da, mm nanabo?” Her voice changed utterly when she spoke to her son.

“Oes,” Habi said, his high, childish voice quiet.

“Off y’ go,” Taci lowered him to the pier, and looked back at Oisin as the little boy toddled off, following his beloved father towards the cluster of huts.

Taci looked back at the foreign wick with a smile. “Ibo tells me we have much to thank you for. Welcome to our home.”

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Oisin Ocasta
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Fri Jul 19, 2019 10:25 pm

21st of Roalis, 2713
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No. No I don't.

Habi spared Oisin from needing to answer Faizra's question, from needing to admit that the notion of family was as foreign to him as anything else in Mugroba. In fact, as of today, he had a better understanding of a maja'wa than of a family. To Oisin, the words were just words, divorced from any kind of meaning. Mother and father were just clinical definitions of the individuals who had sired him, as unfamiliar to Oisin as the man who had made his boots: perhaps even more so, because at least he knew what the bootmaker did for work. The mercenaries were the closest approximation he'd ever known, a group bound together by obligation and shared habitation: but they were a bunch of repugnant erseholes, by and large, and while that might have been one kind of family experience, it wasn't the sort that Oisin was envious of, or curious about.

Perhaps it was that line of thought that provoked Habi's spontaneous outburst. It was a concept that Oisin would never have considered ordinarily, but Faizra's surprisingly gentle suggestion brought the notion to his mind. He was aware of the concept, certainly. Fields and glamours, they were supposed to communicate things. Feelings. Intentions. Things that the mona needed to know when they were judging your magic. Things that wicks and gollies could feel, if they knew what they were doing. Unfortunately, Oisin did not know what he was doing. He understood the concept. He understood that the feelings he felt around certain people were because of their field. But this talk of communicating through it? Of conveying emotion by deliberate will? He just couldn't fathom it. He couldn't recall having ever experienced it, not really, not in a way he could ever hope to emulate. That was what happened when you barely met a wick for most of your life: if Oisin had experienced emotions in fields before, it was the anger and glee of the galdori that beat him, or the disdain of real wicks when they realised the kind of city-born freak that he was.

It was why he chose to address the mona in the way that he did. Wicks were supposed to have casual conversations with the mona, to talk to them like they were alive, instead of the fancy structured poetry that the galdori used. Oisin couldn't do that. Conversation at all had never come naturally. He never knew what to say, and he always worried about how he sounded. If he couldn't even get the words right, what point was there, what hope was there, of communicating anything more complex and subtle through his glamour? But stories were different. In stories, things weren't left unsaid. Everything was communicated, every detail given clear and plain. You didn't rely on subtext in stories to communicate that you were angry: it was right there in the prose, right there in the description of what was happening, and what it made you feel.

It made Oisin better to think of the mona that way: as beings who were hearing the whole story, in full, and making their judgements based upon it. Perhaps that wasn't good enough for the galdori, with their structured spells, and magical duels. Perhaps that wasn't good enough for the real wicks, whose mystic arts were tradition or heritage. But it worked for Oisin, except for when it didn't. Like now. How did you tell a story without telling a story? If he told the story to himself, would that be enough?

Oisin didn't have the opportunity to dwell much longer, before Taci appeared. As she spoke, he tried to perceive what others did, tried to sense her glamour, to understand it in terms more than merely there. Was it musical, like her voice? Was it strong, and formidable, a protective lioness, benign at a glance but more than ready to strike as needed - the sense that Oisin's eyes gave him of her? Or was that the same thing? Were the inklings that he thought of as instincts merely his sense of those glamours by another name?

"Thank you." The words felt so small as they escaped from Oisin, especially next to Taci's voice; so undeserved, too. The way that Ibo had looked at him, the warmth that Oisin felt with each of those looks and smiles, they had almost made him believe it. But now the lie had spread, Ibo passing it along to his wive like some grim disease, and here was Oisin being welcomed like a hero, still standing awkwardly in the canoe, not quite feeling worthy to clamber from one floating surface to another. It was only thanks to Taci's words that he found the motivation and courage to clamber up from the canoe at all, his desire not to offend by remaining beyond the threshold of the home he was being welcomed to outweighing the sensation of feeling the imposter by being there. "Though I'm not sure I deserve any praise. I'm sure anyone else would have done exactly the same."

He hadn't thought that it would change anything, the difference between canoe and pier, but it did. Instead of watching the floating homestead from the outside, he was part of it now. He could feel it moving as the family moved, the way that Hami's eager footfalls sent vibrations that nudged and changed the gentle sway of each tethered segment. It was like the difference between watching the market, and walking amongst it. He could see it, up close and personal, aware that the entire lives of this family were mere foosteps away from him. Oisin had spent so long content with being on the outside looking in: but was this the feeling that he had been depriving himself of? And what did you say to someone who was willing to share such a home with you?

"This is -" He searched for the words. Just one adjective would do. His thoughts found nothing. "- unlike anything I've ever seen."
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Faizra pezre Taci
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Sun Jul 21, 2019 6:10 pm

Late Afternoon, 21 Roalis, 2713
A Floating Settlement, The Turga
Taci watched Oisin climb up from the canoe; she didn’t offer him a hand, like perhaps Ibo might have, but she didn’t seem to judge him either, if he found the shift unfamiliar. Faizra, behind him, shifted effortlessly from canoe to dock and back again, tying up the boat to the back of the pier, then tying the paddles to one of the seats, everything carefully and deliberately secured, the precautions so routine that it was easy for Oisin to tell how necessary they must be. After a few moments of apparent thought, she even took the last of Oisin’s wet things and draped them over the benches, prodding curiously at the unfamiliar fabrics.

Taci’s glamour was weaker than Ibo’s, and more reserved as well; unlike Faizra’s, which fluttered freely, or Ibo’s, which had shifted against Oisin’s freely enough, almost caprised him in a way, she held hers close to her chest. Perhaps it was from the glamour he had a sense of her as a lioness, but there was no deliberate answer to his seeking, at least not magically.

Taci glanced over her shoulder at Oisin’s final comment, looked back at him again, and smiled. Perhaps it wasn’t so much the words he said as the look on his face, but she seemed to take them as the compliment they were intended to be.

“Ibo tells me you are from a city of Anaxas,” Taci said.

Behind her, Faizra swooped to grab a crate. She could only manage one, but she hefted it with surprising ease, and followed her father off the dock. Taci was quiet for a moment as she left, letting the two of them stand in silence until Faizra was a little further out of earshot. Oisin would sense their glamours mingling as Faizra passed her mother, free and loving, but it would still be hard for him to get a grasp on Taci’s.

“I am from Thul Ka,” Taci continued. “I think you know – as well as I – that not anyone else would have done the same,” she glanced back over her shoulder at Faizra now, watching her daughter making her way towards the hut, carefree and cheerful. She took a deep breath, slow and even, letting it out, and looked back at Oisin.

“It is not lightly that Ibo has asked you here,” Taci said. “We keep this place to those we trust. There are those jealous of the lives we have built for ourselves on this river, who believe that we must keep riches here.”

Taci shifted, and Oisin would be, abruptly, very aware that she was between him and the rest of the settlement. Her hands were open in front of her, nowhere near the knife at her back, but for all that she didn’t have Ibo’s height or musculature – she, too, would feel to Oisin very much like a coiled spring. Perhaps it was her glamour; perhaps it was only the way she held herself.

“My hama trusts his instincts,” Taci said, gentling slowly. “He would have told you none of this, but I felt you should know. You are welcome here – we welcome you – but it is by your own hand.” She extended her hand, now, to shake his, and for the first time Oisin would feel a deliberate push of her glamour against him, a soft feeling of welcoming.

Ibo was making his way back along the pier now; the crates were gone, but Habi was perched happily on his father’s shoulders, small feet drumming against his chest.

“Taci, what’s this?” Ibo grinned at her and Oisin both. His hand slid along the curve of her back, just above where the hilt of the knife rested, and Taci smiled up at him, then back at Oisin. “Oisin, come wit’ me this time, we’ll get y’ settled somewhere more comfortable.”

Ibo scooped up two more crates; Taci picked up one as well, and they headed back down the pier. Faizra scrambled back past them, effortlessly dodging through her parents and snatching a swat at Habi, who ducked and shrieked and grinned, delightedly, his father utterly unperturbed by his squirming about.

Faizra scooped up one of the two remaining crates, grinned at Oisin, “C’mon! Ye spitch?” She teased him, hefting the crate and following her parents.

The pier ended, neatly joined into a big, arch of boards. Huts dotted the inside and outside of it, connected to the circle that joined them together with walkways of their own. Not for this settlement the half-rotted, treacherous, slippery wood of big-tree-in-the-river’s-bend; the wick community was flawlessly maintained. Like the canoe, nothing looked new, nothing looked anything less than hand-carved and hand-maintained, but it was clear they left nothing to fate, that they took the best care they could of what they have carved from the earth and the river.

Ibo and Taci went into one of the huts on the exterior, just a short way down from the dock, leaving their crates behind there. Habi emerged first, toddling cheerfully out, and set off on his own way down the circular walkway, evidently unsupervised. Ibo emerged next, and Taci as well. He wrapped his arm around her, the two of them standing on the path. Faizra nudged past them, almost as easily with the crate as she had without it, and disappeared into what looked, from the outside, like a storeroom.

“Y’ need anythin’?” Ibo asked, smiling and friendly still. “Place t’ sit, or d’ye wan’ t’ look around?”

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Oisin Ocasta
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Mon Sep 30, 2019 2:56 am

21st of Roalis, 2713
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Did he need anything? Ibo asked as if he hadn't already given Oisin more than he could ever wish for or imagine. The single paltry crate that Oisin had brought with him, following along in Faizra's wake, hardly seemed like recompence for the gift of being here. It was as if he'd been led to a banquet, and then asked if he wanted anything that wasn't already among the heaving presentation of food arrayed in front of him; except instead of meats, and pies, and pastries, instead of fruits, and fritters, and finest wines, Oisin was invited to gorge himself on the sound of children at play, the warmth of a family, the feel of their fields as they bumped and bounced against each other as nonchallantly as barrels in a river, the rare sight of a home and a life that he scarcely felt worthy to so much as glimpse. Now they asked him if he wanted more. What more could there possibly be?

It was rude not to have answered, but words continued to fail him, for now at least. He looked around him, searching his surroundings for some touchstone of familiarity. It was how he had coped here in Mugroba, how he stopped himself from drowing amid the sights and sounds and smells that were so indescribably different from anything he had ever known. Those points of familiarity were the feet on the bottom of the river that kept his head above water. His eyes sought out the foods that were familiar, the produce at market that seemed as if it had come from Anaxas. If that failed him, he exchanged the familiar for the similar. He focused on fish: different breeds, perhaps, but to his uneducated eyes, a fish was a fish; just as a door was a door, and an axe was an axe, no matter what flourishes and variations they happened to possess. Here, a crate was a crate, and Oisin clung to the one he carried as if it were his anchor, letting the similarities moor him to some semblance of understanding.

Slowly, he let that understanding grow into acceptance, and began to study the differences that made it unique: the local wood, the Mugrobi style, the way a different culture adopted a different technique to construct something as seemingly simple and ubiquitous as a wooden box. The planks, the joints, of the crate and beyond it to the floating settlement itself; ropes woven from unfamiliar fibres, roofs of different styles, buildings constructed in different shapes. He let the differences transform into questions, into hows and whys. There was the water, of course, and the materials at hand, but then there was the heat, and the sun, a home built where the sun's warmth was something to be shielded and sheltered from, not something trapped and coveted the way it was back in Old Rose. He wondered what a home like this might be like were it built in Anaxas, stretching out from the end of the piers back home, perhaps. What ways would it need to be different? What ways would it need to be the same? If Anaxi builders found themselves in these environs here in Mugroba, would they build exactly what the Mugrobi had built, or would they find different solutions to the same problems?

He kept the questions to himself, despite the eagerness of the inquisitive deluge to spew forth; but their mere presence was a comfort, his inquisitiveness a protective layer of armour to protect him from the overwhelming nature of everything around him. Questions were how he kept the world at bay, that slight distance a safeguard against surroundings that all too often were too much.

His own questions could be indulged in time, too. For now, Ibo's question was what required his consideration. "Something to do would be nice," was the answer he decided to give, and perhaps the most honest thing he could have possibly said. "If I'm going to repay this much hospitality, you'd better give me somewhere to start."
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