Can't see the wood...

[Vega]

3rd Cylus 717

"So. Just to be clear," Vega said, nudging him with an elbow as they walked towards the forest. "If we get into a fight, shoot them. Keep shooting them. You're a nimble little fellow," her glance was teasing at the word 'little', no doubting it. "You should be able to keep yourself safe. But just in case, here." From under her coat where it had been tucked into her belt next to her own, she pulled a longsword, wrapped up and handed it to him. "This is for you. I'll teach you to use it, if you like. It means you don't have to climb on things to hurt them and cause me to lose my temper. It makes me frown and that will lead to wrinkles, which will make me look old. Like a crone."

She held it out, a little uncertainly in truth. "Please? I'm sure that there's this whole pride thing going on, but I was thinking that you could teach me to cook and take my turn cooking in camp, if you wanted, as a payback. Or, of course, you could stop my nightmares and consider it fair exchange too." She hadn't mentioned that one, but evidently she remembered enough about it to know he'd been there. "Sorry about the thumping. But you seemed uncommonly tall, so I can't imagine I hurt you."

There was a question, though, which Vega had wanted to ask but hadn't yet. "So, is she real? Ny.. Nyova? You said I'd feel her, tickling the back of my neck. You're well weird, you know." She smiled as she said it but it was true. "I didn't ever expect to think of you as a grown up, that's for sure. But thank you."

Having gotten past the awkwardness of making a kind gesture, Vega shot him a grin. "So, we're going to use the horse and cart again? Will Peg trust us enough to go into the woods twice in a few trials?" It had been quite the adventure last time, that was for sure and she had to feel sorry for the poor mare who had withstood it. "So, we've got to get wood. I mean, I don't mean to be funny, but we're only what? Three trials into Cylus." She raised an eyebrow. "Not exactly well prepared, are they?"

Breathing in the cold air, she glanced at the wagon he'd brought. "Did you bring a candle or lantern or something? I mean, I suppose now's a good a time as any to show off" Lifting the cuff of her shirt, Vega revealed her lower arm. In the constant dark of Cylus, there was a definite glow to her arm where her veins showed her silver blood. Her expression was a good natured grin as she did. "It seems normal to me, you know. In candle light, it's more noticeable. So, I'm figuring that we should just, like, get wood, get back and then I'll show you how to hit things without killing yourself."

As they walked, Vega turned and looked around a few times and then frowned. "Arlo, can you hear that?" There was no noise to his ears except the normal forest ones. "I keep hearing it. It's like... can you hear it? Like a bird calling?" Her face settled into a scowl and she shook her head. "I swear, I'm starting to hear things, too. Can you?"

Off Topic

25gn deducated from ledger for sword

[Arlo Creede]

"Well you do have one of those," Arlo said when she referred to her temper. Though he was smiling when he said it. The sword Vega produced then, caused a different sort of response. It was a good one. He could tell just by looking. But she was right about pride. Maybe he had an ordinary amount of it for a young man his age. Or maybe he had more. But it was clear from his expression that he wouldn't be quick to accept what he couldn't acquire on his own. At least not yet.

On the other hand, if they were to make some sort of deal, something he could do that she'd consider a fair enough trade, then Arlo might consider it. "I'm not a great cook, but I don't mind and I can show you a few things. And do the cooking to when we combine camps." Assuming her friend was amenable, that was. And if he wasn't, well then he could do most of the cooking just for the two of them instead. "Fair enough," he said, and finally took the weapon. "Thank you. It's a good one, and I appreciate it."

As for chasing away her nightmares, he could have said he'd be there whenever she needed him to. But at least for now, he ended up just where Jesine wanted him to be. Chances were, she'd find him there again. "You were a child with a temper. Nothin's changed so far as I can tell," he added and shrugged, grinning a little while strapping the new sword to his hip. He might not know how to use it at present. But it might still come in handy.

"She's real," he told her, when she asked about Lyova, and meanwhile he'd confirmed that he'd hitched up Peg and the wagon by strolling in the mare's direction. "She's just there," Arlo added and pointed towards Peg, "buzzing about Peg's ears and driving her to distraction." A mischievous little thing he'd discovered, all in good fun but every few trills the mare would flick an ear, as if trying to drive off an invisible dragonfly. "When Jesine gave me her blessing, she left Lyova with me. She's a companion, she watches over me. Sometimes she shows herself to others in dreams, but only when she chooses to," the young man explained.

"When I told you I was a dreamwalker," he added and picked up Peg's lead to tug her along. "I left that bit out. You already thought I was younger than I am. I couldn't be caught talking to an imaginary friend. She marked me too with her blessing." Though Arlo was quick to add that the thing wasn't exactly visible to others, unless viewed beneath the moonlight. And only then if the hair on the back of his neck wasn't concealing it.

As for Peg, the mare didn't seem to object to another outing. True to Arlo's word, she seemed to possess a very good and steady nature. Except when anyone tried to ride her, of course. "I've got a lantern," he confirmed. There in the back of the wagon along with any other supplies he'd thought they might need. Though all that was forgotten at least temporarily when she showed him the way her blood flowed silver through her veins. It was fascinating really, and he couldn't resist asking. "When it's completely dark, is it enough to see by?" He was only partially teasing her, and the rest was genuine curiosity.

Still, she was right. The folks of Desnind could have planned better, if they were already running short of firewood.

"Hear what?" he asked after they'd been walking awhile. He frowned, stopped and listened. There were the normal sounds a forest made when anyone walked through it. Or even when no one was there. Small creatures moving about, leaves, many of them dead this time of the arc, rustling through the trees. And he suspected she wasn't referring to the array of small wild birds that would inevitably be populating the treetops.

"I don't hear anything out of the ordinary," he concluded. "Doesn't mean you're imagining it though." Arlo knew that better than most others, in fact. "What's different about it. Different from other birds, I mean?" he asked.

[Vega]

"What do you mean?" Vega asked, mock-sharply when he said that she had a temper. "Always have had. My father and I have screaming mad arguments. Nose to nose. I miss them, in a funny sort of way. Done and dusted in a few bits at most, then we'd laugh." Just a momentary flash of homesickness hit her, but it was the first since she'd left. "You know, I left home in Saun, and that's the first time I've felt homesick. Oh, no, I've gone too long without an argument. Best make sure your hat's well positioned, I could blow at any trill." She was joking about the end bit, at least. "Do you ever get homesick, Arlo?"

He took the sword, though and she grinned. "Yeah, well, whatever." Vega turned serious emerald eyes to him as she added. "Way I see it, it might keep you alive long enough to teach me to cook to a standard so that I can survive on my own when I leave here. It also lessens the risk of food poisoning to us all when I try to take my turn to cook. We all get to stay alive lots of ways. Win win."

There was no doubting that she was a child with a temper, but there he was again suggesting that things hadn't changed. "Shurrup, you." He strapped the sword on and she smiled. "You actually look older. How stupid is that? Suits you. You look almost grown up. Almost." All teasing and good-natured ribbing disappeared though and it was Vega's turn to look young as her eyes turned a bright, almost neon violet colour and widened in delight when he said that Nyova was over there by Peg. "Oh, hello again! Thank you for helping me in my dream." If it was unusual to take all this in her stride, Vega had no idea. She had grown up amongst superstitions, stars, dreams and prophecies.

"You're never going to let that go are you? I said that you looked twelve swinging your legs. That's all I said. When you stopped doing one you stopped looking like the other. Honestly, I'm telling you. You fret like an old lady." She laughed, though and shook her head when he asked if her silver blood was enough to see by. "No, but it is a bit eerie at night, on the ship. Star light and candlelight, they're the two things that it glows under best. On a clear night, you can see the reflection of the glow in the still waters, reflecting and shining there. It's like nothing I've ever seen, Arlo." Her eyes held a far-off expression as they shifted to a very pale version of the same violet colour. "I hope I dream about it some time and you're there and see it. I haven't got words for how beautiful it is."

As beautiful as the image was, Vega was soon pulled away from it and frowned as she heard the sound of the bird again. She looked at him and shook her head. "Nothing." Which was, of course, her first response and then she looked at him and thought about just who she was talking to. "I have to find it. I can't explain it, Arlo. It makes no sense, but I can hear this bird and I know that it's calling me. Not just random calls. It's calling me." She sighed and looked at him sideways. "I sound mad as a box of frogs, don't I? It is though and I don't understand whether I'm going mad or what." The frown he'd seen on her seven arc old face was reflected now, thirteen arcs later. "Lets collect wood. This is stupid." She glanced at him and grinned. "I'm just jealous of you and your imaginary friend is all, so I decided to make one of my own, evidently. Or something."

Moving to collect some fallen wood, Vega knelt on the ground and called to him. "Arlo? Come look at this." There, in the clearing that they were in at this point, was a small camp, long since abandoned. To the side of it there was a small stick, embedded deep in the ground with a brightly coloured scarf wrapped around it. Entwined in the scarf was a small necklace, looking like it fitted a child. "This looks like the kind of thing you were just describing. Is it yours?" She looked at him and then frowned at the sound of that bloody bird, again.

[Arlo Creede]

"I think I can handle it," Arlo responded with a grin when she warned him of a temper kept too long without a suitable argument. "I guess so, maybe," he added when she asked him, did he get homesick. "Sometimes. More my family though. Not the farm," he explained. "My stepfather married my mother before I was born, and never treated me as anything but what he would have his own." He probably didn't appreciate that about his stepfather, as much as he should have.

"He'd have liked it had I been interested in farming like him. But he sometimes remarked that I must've taken after someone else that I'd never known, and he hadn't either. It didn't seem to bother him much though." In fact if the man had resented it, Arlo had never sensed as much. "Sometimes I wouldn't mind a warm bed and a roof over my head for a night or two. Or to wake up to the smell of my mother's cooking. But only sometimes and not for long." He preferred the open and the independence after all, and always had.

"Do I now?" he asked, smiling while he strapped on the sword. He didn't know about looking older, armed in such a way. But it was a comfortable enough fit. Meanwhile, as previously mentioned though in a dream, for all her troubles, Vega would see no small, most times elusive creature waving back at her. But she would, just a trill after her greeting, feel the slightest of tickles across the back of her neck. "Lyova says hello and it's good to see you again, in the only way that she can."

"I wouldn't have minded seeing that," he remarked as they headed off down the path, Peg giving him a nudge in the backside now and again, when she decided they weren't moving fast enough. It must have been quite a sight on board a ship surrounded by water. Moonlight and starlight competing for reflections on the sea with silver glowing peoples.

But then there was that sound she kept hearing. But he didn't hear it at all. Arlo shook his head. "You don't sound mad, though others than me might think so." He took great care when he remembered, after all, to speak to Lyova through thoughts and not words, while in mixed company. Lest others think him mad. "I don't think it's good to ignore it though. Better to try and solve it. It might be important anyway and won't stop bothering you till you do."

But then they stumbled upon an old campsite, and though Arlo had seen plenty of those in the past arc, this one was a little bit different. At least, the stick and the scarf were a curiosity he didn't see every trial. "You mean my offerings to Cassion?" he asked, and without a thought pulled the stick from the ground. "Maybe? Or maybe there's a message that somebody's left here to find." What that might be there was no telling, but he took some time to untie and remove the scarf, then handed her the necklace for a look. "Does it look like anything you've seen before?"

[Vega]

"Fighting talk, that is," Vega grinned at him with good humour. "Watch out what you're wishing for, sunshine." She had a temper, no doubting it. But a warm bed and his mother's cooking? Vega considered it, for a moment and then nodded. "My father's cooking for me, of course. He never married again, never had a lady friend that I knew of. He'd have liked it if I'd been interested in seafaring, too. Never could bring myself to care." She shook her head, slightly. "It's like. I can't explain it other than to say I belong on the land, you know? I never crave a roof or bed, just my father's cooking. Just him, really."

Pale yellow eyes with flecks of deep crimson regarded him, then. "It's strange. You know what my father looks like. You know what I looked like as a child. So does Nyova. It's strange to think, really." Her face lit into a wide grin as she felt a strange fluttering itch on the back of her neck. "Well, I hope you're having a good trial, Nyova, and Arlo isn't neggin at you too much." What 'neggin' might be she didn't say but the word was delivered like she expected him, and Nyova both, to know what it meant.

As discussion turned the sound of the bird, though, she nodded. "I've never experienced anything like it, it's... well it's a pull like I can't tell you, Arlo. I'm going to have to meditate on it." With a slightly wry expression she wrinkled her nose. "It's something I've always had to do, meditate. No one else in my family does, I think most of them think I'm just being sulky or something, but it's as important as sleeping. I guess it's the hey nonny nonny within, eh?"

The campsite, though, that pulled both their attention although Vega would have been more cautious than him when yanking things out of the ground. Looking at the necklace she frowned in concentration. "It's a child's, I think. It's small, certainly. Maybe a child left it here. Or someone found it and left it for the child? Here, can I borrow your dagger?" Assuming that he let her use it, Vega moved over to a tree nearby which had a hollow in the side of it, filled with mulch and other detritus. She used the dagger to clear it, then to carve a small notch on the inside of the hollow, on which she hung the necklace. "There. If she comes back, it won't get wet now and she'll be able to find it". She motioned to the scarf. "You could put that in your pocket and look like it's a 'kerchief. Just don't blow your nose in it, it's disgusting."

Looking at the wood they had managed to collect which was a rather poor offering thus far, she gave him a grin. "Do you think we should get on with why we're here and stop faffing around?" She didn't mind one way or another really, but she thought she'd best ask. Just in case he was coming over all grown up or something.

[Arlo Creede]

"You belong on the land, I belong on the road," Arlo quipped when she tried to explain what couldn't be in a sense. Except that he believed he knew where his wanderlust came from. "My stepfather never said it to me directly that I can remember," he said as they'd gone along the path, collecting pieces of wood and tossing them into the back of the wagon.

"But I heard him once or twice telling my mother that I must have inherited the wanderlust from my father. Both my feet, and my imagination," he explained. "He was a traveler, you see, who was gone before my mother knew she was pregnant, and my stepfather married her before I was born." It was funny that he knew what Vega's father looked like, but wouldn't have recognized his own if the man was standing right in in front of him.

But the thing that was calling her, the bird or whatever it was, anyone else might have thought she was mad. "Meditate. Like deep thinking?" he teased her. He was given to dreaming awake, much as he did while sleeping. But he wouldn't exactly describe it as meditation or deep thinking. "Maybe it's a part of you missing, either literal or figurative. Or maybe it's like me and Lyova. But I didn't miss her before her arrival or think something was missing. But now it's different. She's part and parcel to who and what I am."

Or maybe, he considered, she was trying too hard. Maybe thinking too much. Sort of like fighting the undertow at the seashore, he suggested to her just as they'd stumbled upon the old campsite. "If you get stuck in an undertow, try as you might it'll keep dragging you back and under. But if you relax and let it carry you, eventfully it'll put you safely back on shore." He'd learned that the hard way, in spite of having already been warned by his stepfather.

"Not bad," he said when she handed him the scarf. Bright colors. Red, blue, a bit of gold. He might make it a kerchief sure. But he'd rather work it in with bits of leather and metal, feathers and so on to wrap round his arm. When she asked for his knife, he handed the thing over. Dagger, knife, though he considered daggers to be for fighting and knives, more the way he used the thing. But no matter, it would do the job nicely when she used it on the tree. And the tree itself with its bent trunk was unusual enough to distinguish it from others nearby.

Faffing around though, he hadn't heard the word before but he guessed that some might take a dim view, whatever it was. "Cylus will only get longer and colder, I guess. We probably ought to fill that cart like we intended." Meanwhile Peg hadn't wandered far, so he collected her lead and they could continue on their way.

[Vega]

"Well, that's the thing, isn't it?" Vega smiled. "My people, the Biqaj, we're free. Sailing on the ocean, free to go where the winds and whims take us. I feel that, I do." Wry was the best description of the expression she wore. "Just not on the ocean. On the land. So, roads, I guess. But not just them. I want to explore places, Arlo. Travel roads and paths no feet have trod on for arcs at a time. Hidden places, tiny spaces and wide open fields. I want to see it all." Shrugging, Vega smiled slightly. "It's the Biqaj way, I just do it a bit different is all. Half of them, half of those, all of me. So my father told me I am, anyhow." Roads sounded rather dull to her, in truth, though she'd no wish to offend him by saying so. If, of course, that was what he meant. With Arlo, she couldn't be entirely sure.

"No, not like deep thinking. I don't do deep thinking, that's for scholars and old folks. Meditation is..." Vega frowned, trying to think about how to explain it. "It's like the opposite, in a way. It's when you can just not think of anything, but just be. Sort of almost like," no, she wasn't doing well explaining this at all. "It's like. Have you ever needed to think about something, but there's just no way that you can because everything else is so noisy inside your head? It allows you to just drop all the rubbish and see things clearly, for what they are. Oh shut up!" Perceived or real, she saw the amusement in his expression and shoved him in the arm in a most unceremonious, but good natured manner.

His analogy of the undertow made sense, and it was a good one for her and her upbringing, but it didn't actually help. "Well, I don't know how to. I mean, I know I need to find her and I keep hearing her. Maybe the thing to do is just let it happen, is that what you're saying?" With a chirpy grin she shrugged. "I don't know what my other option is, to be honest. Thanks." Having cleaned off the knife, she handed it back. "Wonder who she is who that necklace belongs to? But yeah, you're right. Collect up the wood.Very sensible and grown up of you, too. You''ll be talking about putting money in banks and how it's important to clean behind your ears soon."

Collecting up wood was hard work, and cold work too. Vega called on him to help pull some particularly heavy branches, which she broke up as best she could with leverage against a fallen tree. For all the cold, it meant that the two of them were tired and sweating by the time that they had broken down and loaded up as much as the cart could carry, Vega looked dishevelled and somewhat grubby. "Whose stupid idea was this, anyhow? I'm sure it was yours. We've got enough wood, why are we being kind?" She didn't mean it, she was quite happy to help out. With a slight grimace, though, she considered briefly. "A hot, steaming hot bath. That's what could tempt me to settle down. Just, lower yourself and soak in suds and warmth. I could live in a house for that, you know. Maybe for two, even three trials." Grabbing the rope, she handed him the other end. "Show me how to tie this off so that one of us doesn't have to run behind putting it back on?"

[Arlo Creede]

"Then we're as much alike as we are different, then aren't we?" Arlo observed when Vega told him she wanted to see it all. "I've said I want to travel all the places where Cassion as gone, see what he's seen. But it's not enough if I'm honest," Arlo explained. "I want to explore, see and do more than that." Who knew if it was even possible. But he was no different than other young men his age. Nothing was impossible.

It did seem a little out there, all her talk about meditation. But he caught the flash of warning in her eyes, the tone, even if they were meant in good fun. Still, he couldn't resist, even after she frogged his arm in jest. "Keep that up, and they'll drop you on a mountaintop somewhere where you can commune with nature, chant and meditate to your heart's content. They'll flock to you for words of wisdom I'm sure," he added with a wider grin. "Like a regular pilgrimage. What with you being such a wise old crone."

"But sure, let it happen," he agreed more seriously as they added more wood to the back of the wagon. As they went along, he suggested they start arranging things so that some of the larger pieces, the ones that had required both of them to lift, were on top of the smaller ones. It was the smaller ones after all that kept tumbling out every time the cart rolled over a rough spot on the path.

"It does get old, washing off in what ponds and streams I can find," he agreed as soon as they'd filled the cart to overflowing. "And this time of the arc, it's too cold for my taste." But once they agreed they had enough wood, he fetched a long coil of rope from the front of the cart. "You see these hooks running down the sides of the cart? We can tie the load down so we don't lose what we've gathered before we get back."

It wasn't so different from the litter they'd made to bring a deer back to camp some trials before. Starting at the front, with one of them on each side of the cart and one end of the rope in each of their hands, they could use the hooks to create a crisscrossing net of sorts over the wood, while the larger pieces on top would keep the smaller ones from tumbling out. It would hold well enough, and once they returned to the walls outside of Desnind, they'd have sufficient wood for themselves, and plenty more to share.

[Avrae Kyric]

A Review by Summer Rain

Name: Vega

Knowledge: (5)
Arlo: Worried Enough About What You Thought of Him To Keep Nyova a Secret
Familiar: The Calling of Your Familiar, Unheard by Others
Personal: The Beauty of Glowing Biqaj Reflecting Off The Waters
Personal: Sometimes Homesick
Meditation: Sometimes It Brings The Focus You Need to Figure Things Out

Loot: N/A
Injuries: N/A
Fame:
+2 Gave a Gift (Arlo's Sword)
+1 General Good Deed (Protected the Necklace from the Elements)
+1 General Good Deed (Helping Out Desnind)
+3 Timely Delivery of Goods (Wood for Desnind)
Devotion: N/A

Story: 5/5
Collaboration: 5/5
Structure: 5/5
Magic: These points may NOT be used for Arcana
Name: Arlo

Knowledge: (4)
Vega: Gave You a Sword
Vega: Her Biqaj Blood Glows In The Dark
Psychology: The Idea of Having Something Missing From Yourself
Psychology: Trying Too Hard Can Affect Things Negatively

Loot: N/A
Injuries: N/A
Fame:
+1 General Good Deed (Protected the Necklace from the Elements)
+1 General Good Deed (Helping Out Desnind)
+3 Timely Delivery of Goods (Wood for Desnind)
Devotion: N/A

Story: 5/5
Collaboration: 5/5
Structure: 5/5
Magic: These points may NOT be used for Arcana
Comment: Hello Vega, hello Arlo! <3 This was such a cute little thread. I wasn't able to find much for knowledges, but I gave what I could. I also couldn't reward Arlo any devotion, as requested, because he was not openly praying (even though he did mention Cassion and Jesine at times) and he didn't meet any of the guidelines of the fame guide. So sorry for that! But otherwise, I hope you enjoy the rewards I did give. <3

One note: Is it Lyova or Nyova? Because Vega was saying Nyova, Arlo said Lyova, so that was a little confusing. Any time I mentioned Nyova/Lyova in your knowledges, I put it as Nyova. If it is Lyova, feel free to change it.

Please PM me with any comments or concerns. <3