1st Draft Fridays - A Fistful of ... (#6)

Redskin Plains

But that very feral side explains why Lallie wasn't told. Geddis wouldn't have dared, for fear that Lallie would lose control of it, and Leathin...

Leathin shouldn't have been so willing to let her near the newborn, but that man always did respond inappropriately to threats. Which was ultimately what got him killed.

Lallie sighs and thanks the youth for the alert, finishes her drink, and rewraps her face to go back outside. Time to get some sleep, and tomorrow she'll go back to exploring the dunes.

It would be faster and easier on four feet rather than two, but she's still afraid to let her feral side out enough to find out its response to the 'other woman'. It's never taken over for so long that she would be able to reach Geddis from here--and that girl doesn't deserve to be harmed for her actions. Lallie's the one who expected her husband to be faithful or at least communicate otherwise, and that's on her head.

Why didn't the man just communicate?

Outside the tents is windy, as usual, even through the layers of local garb. Some sand gets in, stings, but Lallie ignores it as she hauls herself to the 'inn' tent.

(And all the tents are maintained with air magic to shunt the wind, which doubtless doesn't help the local weather patterns.)

But the erratic wind means the trace of a scent that catches her feral side's attention is far too weak for her to consciously identify. Lallie adjusts her grip on her staff before entering the inn, ready to protect herself from her own people.

The slenderness of the person quietly haggling with the owner lets Lallie release that concern, even while it adds new ones. Elves sicken away from the live things they have an affinity for, and both plants and animals are sparse, around here. Lallie isn't even sure how these locals support themselves.

"Hello," she greets in elvish. "What brings you... Waislen?"

This elf had been her husband's majordomo or some such thing. Marsdenfel had been a mess, and Lallie had been too busy helping with things in her realms of expertise to follow or keep up with all the nuances of running the realm, especially not with the differences added by race, culture, and language.

Waislen always had a steel in her, possibly from growing up enslaved by horrible people that left her with a lot of scars that she usually keeps hidden under her clothing. The elf looks at Lallie without adjusting her expression or poise.

"You know this female? Vouch for her?"

The innkeeper hadn't asked anyone to vouch for Lallie.

"Lulni," Waislen says, greeting Lallie by her title in montai.

"No. Not anymore."

The elf's non-reaction is characteristic of when she thinks a person is being a fool. "Then who? Your brother stays with the Finder. Your mother travels. The only ones with power and willingness for the position are abusing it."

Lallie draws a sharp breath. "Not me."

Waislen's eyes narrow.

"I tried," Lallie points out. "I was terrible at it. Dakadza wasn't much better. What would my mother do, cringe at them?"

That breaks Waislen's placidity with a frown. "Your mother killed several."

"Good for her." Maybe it's hypocritical to assume her mother killed for valid reason when she refuses to assume the same of her feral side, but Lallie doesn't care. "I heard the montai are scattered, some entering the Plains. Let them be liable to local law. Montai customs aren't worth keeping."

Anger flashes in the elf, and Lallie bites her tongue. Waislen's people has lost much in its few generations of enslavement, much of that time spent relocated into the human realm that had enslaved them. They had been freed and returned to a realm they didn't know, with inscriptions and records in a language they couldn't read and hardly spoke.

Even Evonalé, who escaped first and can both speak and read the language, has never noticed that her exclamation of choice when startled is faery, not elvish. Evonalé isn't the only survivor who never went back to Marsdenfel, either,  though Grehafen admittedly has at least as much claim on her.

"I'm sorry," Lallie says softly. "That was poorly worded of me. I don't see the value of a culture based on beating up everyone weaker than you until they do as you say. It dying would be a good thing."

"They'll just find something else to justify what they want to do."

"Or invent it," Lallie agrees, which she's pretty sure was what her father had done, working his way into power in a place and then leveraging that power to destroy so much. "But it's not a montai thing—not necessary for earth elementals, and not limited to us, either."

Waislen shifts ever so slightly, silently acknowledging Lallie's point.

The innkeeper has moved on to tending the stew he keeps on the fire, adding further water and bits of food as it needs them. He sticks to local fare, so while it doesn't particularly agree with Lallie, there's no nutmeg, citrus, or sufficient onion or garlic to make her ill.

Lallie guesses he's taken their conversation for evidence that the elf's okay people. Waislen tosses the male a silver piece.

"You're staying?" Lallie blurts, torn between concern and horror. "I don't know what the contagion is. The revenants..."

Like many reserved people, Waislen can communicate a lot without saying a word. The subtle cues are hard to recognize consciously, but instinctually? All you have to do is heed your instincts, and Lallie's instincts are loud.

"It's the water," Waislen says quietly, in elvish, with a glance to the innkeeper. "Something lives in it. I brought a tincture."

Lallie blinks at Waislen. Having to kill something when she drinks would explain why her feral side has been...sated, lately. And there she'd been hoping it was mellowing.

She takes the elf's cue though, and leads her through the flap that separates the cuddy she's renting from the rest of the tent.

These areas are meant for sleeping and nothing else, but Lallie is standard size for a human and Waislen is both small and adept at folding herself up.

"Okay," Lallie continues one they're seated. "How do you know this and the Plainskin don't?"

"What makes you think they don't?"