1629, Fire Season, Stasis Week, Fireday Eve?
Context
On the magical trip down to Valadon, Berra noticed that Nayale was scared. Session S-N-5.10.
Events
At Valadon, Nayale has decided to spend the night in the stables, looking after the horses. They’ve all had a bit of a rough go, thanks to the river travel and she just wants to make sure they recover well.
Berra, Wyter Priest, walks into the stables not long after Nayale has settled. She has her panniers with her.
Nayale scrambles to her feet from where she’d been rolling out her sleeping hide. “Lady Berra. I have already brushed out your mount for you.” Straw clings to the young woman’s tunic. She has shed her armour and left it neatly stacked by her own slim saddle bag.
“Mhm. Thanks.” She looks Nayale up and down, and then dumps her pannier not far away. “You’re not alright. What’s up?”1Varanis: Starting hard! Lemme just look up my character sheet and grab some dice then, shall I?
Nayale winces. “That obvious?”
“Like a whore visiting the Vorians.” Berra leans against the wall where she dumped her kit, and watches Nayale.
Shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, Nayale stares at a spot on the wall, just above Berra’s head. “It’s… Death,” she whispers.
Berra considers that. “You’re still feeling fear? Awe?”
“I tried to meditate on it. I tried all night after the thing at the river. I just kept falling into fear instead. I thought I’d mastered it eventually, but then on the river tonight? I wanted to sob.”
Berra sits down, putting her feet up on the leather of her packs as if she is at home, casually in a chair with a footstool, and not neatly folded up against a wall in a way that defies ease and in fact biology. “It is part of us all. It comes in its time, but to fear it is… natural, I guess.”
“It’s not so much Death, as dying,” Nayale admits, still staring at the wall. “The pain. Loss of control. Not dying well. And leaving Harmakt.” Her eyes well with tears, but they don’t fall. Yet.
“After you die, you’re done,” Berra says. “And we treat you with respect no matter how you died. But you’re missing your brother, aren’t you? You said you were, before.”
Nayale blushes but nods. “I know that’s not very Humakti…”
“I think… have you ever been homesick?”
Stiffening, Nayale finally looks directly at Berra. “That’s … for children!”
“Yeah, but where Harmakt is, is your home. You feel safe with him.”
((Fail Air, Pass Truth, Pass Love Family))
[21:35]
Nayale drops down onto her sleeping hide and puts her face in her hands. “You’re right,” comes her muffled reply.2Nayale fails Air, passes Truth and Love Family.
“You’ve been away for…” Berra trails off for a moment then goes on, “…long enough to have seen a lot. You’ve been hit by memories and you’ve not had a lot of time to think, and the one person you’d tell isn’t here.”
Without lifting her head, Nayale manages a shrug. She follows it with a nod a moment later.
Berra, cursed with the congenital inability to comfort people with hugs, looks at her hands for a moment. “He’ll be there for you. Believe in him.”
“I know,” Nayale tells her knees. “But he’ll laugh at how foolish I’ve been too.”
“S’what friends are for,” Berra replies.
Finally, she looks over at Berra. Her eyes are red, but she is not crying. “Do you have any sibs?”
“A sister. She’s Ernaldan. Very Ernaldan. Two years younger than me, got two kids and a foster. Second marriage by now – her first husband died. I grew up in a house with a lot of cousins, though.”
“You’re an aunt.” It’s as though something has clicked into place for the younger woman. “I am too. Some of the older ones have children.”
Berra counts up on her fingers. “Two-maybe-three niblings, and a few aunts and uncles. Way more cousins on the other side, a jump of a generation. My mother’s father married in Esrolia too.”
“One of my sisters should have a new one by now,” Nayale muses. “Was supposed to be born in Harmony Week.”
Berra considers, and does not interrupt. She just makes an encouraging noise.
“One of my sisters, Jocanda… she believes Humakti should have nothing to do with babies or small children. And because Harmakt and me… well, anyway, she’s the oldest and so she’s in charge and we aren’t allowed to play with them.” Nayale stares at her knees again. “It’s fine. I am not a baby person anyway. But… yeah. My aunt – you met her – she’s always been good to me.”
“I wasn’t Humakti when I was a kid. My sister’s fine, though – she knows that I’m a protector, not a killer. So, this passes. You learn to get along on your own, but sometimes it is lonely, and that’s not a problem with you, not when you’re this young. It just means it’s new to you.”
“But… aren’t we also killers, Lady? I first killed someone when I was a child and … I know it was self defense, but aren’t I a killer?” Though Nayale is saying them, the words don’t sound like hers.
“Yeah, but we don’t stab what’s behind us. We’re a sword, not a fire or a club, and you hold a sword in the part that isn’t sharp. You defend what’s behind you.”
Nayale just shrugs again. “Thanks for … this,” she says, unclear about what this is. “It helps.” She starts to pull herself back to her feet. “Now, how can I serve you?”
“Nah, you did my horse. I’m sleeping here tonight, after worship, so you’ve got someone nearby.”
This earns Berra a sharp look from the young woman. “I’m safe here. And you’re a Wyter Priest. You shouldn’t be sleeping in the stables like a novice!”
“You’re lonely here, and it’s my job to look after you.” Berra wriggles down towards the hay, and loosens the sword-belts that are getting in the way. She might be about to put her head down, or she might be thinking about the night’s service. It will have to be a short one.
“But Berra! You’ve already got straw in your hair and you’ve not even slept here yet!”
“Kay? And?” Berra sits up a bit. “I guess you’re telling me to put my hide out, then.”
“It’s… undignified!” This, coming from a young woman in patched and mended padding, with straw in her own hair and dirt on her cheek.
“Don’t care.” Berra starts putting out her bedroll. “If you think of anything to ask me during the night, step over and see if I’m awake.”
Nayale ceases to argue. Instead, she gives Berra a little bow and goes over to check on the horses.
Berra lets her get on with it, setting her bed out. She is going to get hay everywhere, the way she is going, including on Nayale’s hide.
In the end, Berra ends up a little distance away, enough to give Nayale privacy, but not enough to leave her entirely alone.
- 1Varanis: Starting hard! Lemme just look up my character sheet and grab some dice then, shall I?
- 2Nayale fails Air, passes Truth and Love Family.
