12 Vhalar 721
Continued from here
Dan moved along the river bank at a steady pace, heading upstream from the willow tree that marked the spot where the fish traps were set out, past the bed of cattails, towards the sloping shelf of a beach that he had noticed earlier. As he went, he flicked his gaze back and forth across the ground, trying to spot any tracks before he stepped on them and buried them under his own footprints.
The beach, when he reached it, was small and muddly, which made it easy to spot the fresh prints - there were a lot of them, overlapping, with the lower ones blurred in a way that meant they were quite a bit older than the ones on the top, which meant someone had been coming here quite a lot over multiple trials. The same someone, because the prints matched. Someone small and young and human. Dan couldn't blame them, it was a nice slope down to the water, and would make a good swimming and bathing spot in warmer weather. Not so much for doing laundry - that was best done somewhere with less mud to get on the cleaned clothes and more rocks to use as scrubbing spots and soaking weights. In his experience, it was almost always easier to find a place that had what he needed that to fight nature to try and make a place somehing that it wasn't.
There was a trail leading off into the grass, made from the same footprints. It wasn't quite a path yet - unlike the dirt track leading to and from the fishing area, it hadn't been used enough for that - but it would probably turn into just as much of a muddy morass when the weather got colder and wetter. Paths had a tendancy to do that out here in the wild, unless someone actually did something about it, like packing it with gravel or laying paving stones or cobbles to give a firm surface underfoot no matter the weather.
Dan sighed and shook himself back to the business at hand. He took one more careful look around the little beach to see if he had missed anything, and spotted a few feathers trampled into the mud. He picked them out. The colouring of them matched the pigeon that had washed up against the traps, so he wrapped them up and tucked them into the bag he always carried slung across his back, then followed the trail. It meandered rather a lot, leading him first to a blueberry bush which the child had clearly been snacking from, as the low level ripe berries had been picked, while the higher ones still hung on the bush. Dan picked a few as a sample to take back, wrapped them in a clean rag, and tucked them into the bag as well. He circled the bush once to look at it from all sides, then found the trail again and followed it once more.
The trail wandered, never taking a straight line, the sign of the child left to wander where they willed, without supervision, and Dan's mouth crooked at the corner with rueful memory of getting lost in the Dust Quarter after his own wanderings at random. Growing up in the orphanage had meant he'd never had much oversight either. Still, he had grown well enough. He was here now, wasn't he? Alive and living mostly free? What else could he ask for?
Eventually, the trail led him back to the settlement, to one of the shelters the settlers were living in until everything got built properly. Dan paused a few yards away, and bit his lip lightly as he thought. The odds were against them being able to understand him, and he was all but a stranger here, a visitor, not one of them. He could go back to Faith and tell her and let her deal with whatever it was, but he didn't have any proof. Nothing firm, just a few feathers and some footprints. And after so many years, he was used to coping alone with whatever came up.
He looked around, orienting himself and considering his options. He could always claim to be lost, he supposed, and looking for someplace else. The Inn, maybe? Or the main cooking space? He moved forward cautiously, trying for once to make some noise as he walked, tryng to override both the instincts and the habits that kept him as quiet as he could manage, so that his approach was audible.
When he got to a place where he could see in through the open door, he found that the child - a girl as far as he could tell - was there alone. She didn't seem to have noticed his approach at all. She was absorbed in cleaning out a small, empty, cage. A feather, very like the ones he had found on the beach, drifted down towards the floor. A row of similar cages formed a line at the back of the shelter, all of them empty.
He took that in as he paused, shifting uneasily. The sunlight behind him sent his shadow streaming ahead of him into the shelter, and she finally looked up and saw him standing there. She signed a wary greeting. When he returned it politely, some of the wariness dropped away. He offered a smile. He knew all too well the problems of only speaking Sign. "Do you live alone here?"
She shook her head. "My parents are mining for salt on the mountain, they'll be back this evening."
Dan nodded, absorbing that information and filing it away with the rest, unsure how to broach the subject of the dead animals. Instead, he signed, a shift in his posture making the question friendly rather than demanding. "My name is Dandelion, what's yours?"
She grinned up at him, revealing a gap in her front teeth where the adult tooth was coming in. "Hi Dandelion, I'm Lily."
"You're ok being alone all day?"
She shrugged and nodded. "I can play games and explore. It's fun. Mama says I can't play with the other children because they wouldn't understand, because I can't hear their words and they can't sign mine."
"I like being alone too," he confided, as if it was a secret, and she beamed, clearly taking that for approval. "Do you ever 'play' with animals? Alive ones or dead ones?" he added, nodding at the cages. "I have a pony and she always pokes her nose in to see what I'm doing."
The smile dropped off her face and she froze, her body language screaming her discomfort to Dan's gaze. "I-" She stopped. Hugged her hands against her body, the way a speaking child might have clapped her hands over her mouth to stop the words coming out.
They stared at each other for a long moment. A tear slid silently down Lily's cheek.
She added stiffly. "Talk to my parents, not to me. They know. Talk to them!" and then turned her back, cutting off any further conversation.
Dan sighed and squinted up at the sun. It was well past noon, but 'evening' wouldn't happen for a few breaks yet and that was when she had said that her parents would be back. He couldn't exactly hang around here until then. He gave a polite nod of acknowledgement and acceptance to her back and stepped away, heading back to the main hearth area.
When he got there, he dug out his wax writing tablet and his stylus, took a seat on the ground out of the way, and began to write up a summary of what he had found and seen and found out. Just the facts, no speculation. He didn't know nearly enough to speculate on why and how and who. It would also be easier to just hand Faith a written summary, than to talk through a translator, potentially one who couldn't translate some of the detail due to not knowing the more complex signs - or simply not seeing (or at least noticing) some of the body language that added tone and inflection to Common Sign.
It took him a while to get everything down and at least twice he had to smooth out the wax where he had written a sentence and write it again with more detail involved, but he got it done at last. He sighed once more, gathered everything up, and went in search of Faith. He had a report to give and an explanation to make.
Continues here
"Signed words" Spoken words
Continued from here
OOC Note
Second in a series dealing with this settlement challenge/plotline
The beach, when he reached it, was small and muddly, which made it easy to spot the fresh prints - there were a lot of them, overlapping, with the lower ones blurred in a way that meant they were quite a bit older than the ones on the top, which meant someone had been coming here quite a lot over multiple trials. The same someone, because the prints matched. Someone small and young and human. Dan couldn't blame them, it was a nice slope down to the water, and would make a good swimming and bathing spot in warmer weather. Not so much for doing laundry - that was best done somewhere with less mud to get on the cleaned clothes and more rocks to use as scrubbing spots and soaking weights. In his experience, it was almost always easier to find a place that had what he needed that to fight nature to try and make a place somehing that it wasn't.
There was a trail leading off into the grass, made from the same footprints. It wasn't quite a path yet - unlike the dirt track leading to and from the fishing area, it hadn't been used enough for that - but it would probably turn into just as much of a muddy morass when the weather got colder and wetter. Paths had a tendancy to do that out here in the wild, unless someone actually did something about it, like packing it with gravel or laying paving stones or cobbles to give a firm surface underfoot no matter the weather.
Dan sighed and shook himself back to the business at hand. He took one more careful look around the little beach to see if he had missed anything, and spotted a few feathers trampled into the mud. He picked them out. The colouring of them matched the pigeon that had washed up against the traps, so he wrapped them up and tucked them into the bag he always carried slung across his back, then followed the trail. It meandered rather a lot, leading him first to a blueberry bush which the child had clearly been snacking from, as the low level ripe berries had been picked, while the higher ones still hung on the bush. Dan picked a few as a sample to take back, wrapped them in a clean rag, and tucked them into the bag as well. He circled the bush once to look at it from all sides, then found the trail again and followed it once more.
The trail wandered, never taking a straight line, the sign of the child left to wander where they willed, without supervision, and Dan's mouth crooked at the corner with rueful memory of getting lost in the Dust Quarter after his own wanderings at random. Growing up in the orphanage had meant he'd never had much oversight either. Still, he had grown well enough. He was here now, wasn't he? Alive and living mostly free? What else could he ask for?
Eventually, the trail led him back to the settlement, to one of the shelters the settlers were living in until everything got built properly. Dan paused a few yards away, and bit his lip lightly as he thought. The odds were against them being able to understand him, and he was all but a stranger here, a visitor, not one of them. He could go back to Faith and tell her and let her deal with whatever it was, but he didn't have any proof. Nothing firm, just a few feathers and some footprints. And after so many years, he was used to coping alone with whatever came up.
He looked around, orienting himself and considering his options. He could always claim to be lost, he supposed, and looking for someplace else. The Inn, maybe? Or the main cooking space? He moved forward cautiously, trying for once to make some noise as he walked, tryng to override both the instincts and the habits that kept him as quiet as he could manage, so that his approach was audible.
When he got to a place where he could see in through the open door, he found that the child - a girl as far as he could tell - was there alone. She didn't seem to have noticed his approach at all. She was absorbed in cleaning out a small, empty, cage. A feather, very like the ones he had found on the beach, drifted down towards the floor. A row of similar cages formed a line at the back of the shelter, all of them empty.
He took that in as he paused, shifting uneasily. The sunlight behind him sent his shadow streaming ahead of him into the shelter, and she finally looked up and saw him standing there. She signed a wary greeting. When he returned it politely, some of the wariness dropped away. He offered a smile. He knew all too well the problems of only speaking Sign. "Do you live alone here?"
She shook her head. "My parents are mining for salt on the mountain, they'll be back this evening."
Dan nodded, absorbing that information and filing it away with the rest, unsure how to broach the subject of the dead animals. Instead, he signed, a shift in his posture making the question friendly rather than demanding. "My name is Dandelion, what's yours?"
She grinned up at him, revealing a gap in her front teeth where the adult tooth was coming in. "Hi Dandelion, I'm Lily."
"You're ok being alone all day?"
She shrugged and nodded. "I can play games and explore. It's fun. Mama says I can't play with the other children because they wouldn't understand, because I can't hear their words and they can't sign mine."
"I like being alone too," he confided, as if it was a secret, and she beamed, clearly taking that for approval. "Do you ever 'play' with animals? Alive ones or dead ones?" he added, nodding at the cages. "I have a pony and she always pokes her nose in to see what I'm doing."
The smile dropped off her face and she froze, her body language screaming her discomfort to Dan's gaze. "I-" She stopped. Hugged her hands against her body, the way a speaking child might have clapped her hands over her mouth to stop the words coming out.
They stared at each other for a long moment. A tear slid silently down Lily's cheek.
She added stiffly. "Talk to my parents, not to me. They know. Talk to them!" and then turned her back, cutting off any further conversation.
Dan sighed and squinted up at the sun. It was well past noon, but 'evening' wouldn't happen for a few breaks yet and that was when she had said that her parents would be back. He couldn't exactly hang around here until then. He gave a polite nod of acknowledgement and acceptance to her back and stepped away, heading back to the main hearth area.
When he got there, he dug out his wax writing tablet and his stylus, took a seat on the ground out of the way, and began to write up a summary of what he had found and seen and found out. Just the facts, no speculation. He didn't know nearly enough to speculate on why and how and who. It would also be easier to just hand Faith a written summary, than to talk through a translator, potentially one who couldn't translate some of the detail due to not knowing the more complex signs - or simply not seeing (or at least noticing) some of the body language that added tone and inflection to Common Sign.
It took him a while to get everything down and at least twice he had to smooth out the wax where he had written a sentence and write it again with more detail involved, but he got it done at last. He sighed once more, gathered everything up, and went in search of Faith. He had a report to give and an explanation to make.
Continues here
Filler Text Filler Text filler filler filler because the preview bug keeps eating my words and you have that min words rule place
