The Song of Wind

[Paladienne]

Ann blinked as she looked at him and suddenly tensed, as if something had startled her. What he didn't know, and he had enough sense not to ask, especially after she looked away. He knew better than to ask what a woman was thinking. He'd seen it often enough back home when his father and mother had one of their rare arguments because one felt that the other should simply know what the other was thinking.

Rather, when she dismounted, so did he, and he took the time to run his hand over Ma'akéné's back to smooth out her fur and give her as best a brushing as he could without the proper tools. He knew she appreciated the gesture, especially since this was the first time in a while they had ridden together for any distance without a significant break. She shook her mane and pawed the ground, then turned her head and lightly nibbled at his elbow. Ann smiled and bopped Ma'akéné on the nose with a loving finger, then pushed her head away from him.

"Go on," Ann said softly. "You deserve a break too."

The mare snorted and shook herself, flicking her tail back and forth before she gave a small spirited jump away from Ann and trotted out a short distance from the two humans. She dipped her head and began to nibble at the grass, her tail lazily swinging back and forth even as her ears remained pricked and turned toward her two-footed brother and his companion.

Ann watched for a minute, then moved toward Riala and sat on the ground cross-legged, pulling his back into his lap and rummaging around in it for some of the food they had managed to scavenge as they traveled. He pulled an edible root from his pack, peeled the dark outer layer of skin, and then offered it to Riala. "Here, have a little. I can't vouch for the taste, but it's definitely filling, and will give you some energy."

[DragonSong]

Ortec's ears and tail perked up suddenly and he trotted cheerily over to Ma'akéné, swishing his tail and taking high, mincing steps that showed off the smoothness of his gait. He bobbed his head twice and pranced a tight circle around her.

Riala rolled her eyes and scoffed. "So much for a break," she huffed, though her lips quirked up on one side just a bit.

When Ann offered her food she eyed the root warily, but took it easily enough. She brought it up to her nose to sniff cautiously, then nibbled at it.

"Eaugh." Yeah, not great in the taste department. But he was right, it was at least something, and it would help to fill their bellies before they started moving again. With a soft sigh she leaned back on one hand, favoring her injured side, and took another bite. "Thanks, Ann." She fell quiet for a few moments, just nibbling at the root and watching their horses graze. The sun was creeping toward the horizon, but they could probably get another two or three hours of travel in before they should really stop for the night.

"So." She glanced sidelong at her companion. "...Tell me something. About you, your family. If we're really doing this, crossing the desert together, I may as well try to get to know the person I'm dying with better," she tried to joke.

[Paladienne]

Ann chuckled. "Getting to know the person you're dying with, huh?" He shook his head and looked toward Ma'akéné, where she lifted her head to study Ortec, her ears flicking forward and back. She snorted and dropped her head again to nibble on the grass, her tail flicking back and forth with quick snaps. Ann laughed and shook his head at the obvious display of disinterest his four-footed sister was giving to the stallion. "How are you so confident that we're going to end up dying? We could live and come back richer than the Adelan king. Or we could find a new, better life than what we had here."

Still, his smile faded somewhat as his memories turned backward, to the family and tribe he'd left behind to fulfill his debt to this girl. Ann sighed softly and tilted his head back to look at the sky.

"Well... I only just obtained adulthood a few months ago," he began, his tone quiet. "Before then, I was still considered a child in the eyes of my tribe. My father was extremely proud I passed the trials on the first try. It's difficult to do that, but not impossible. Passing on the first try is a testament to the skills taught to the child from its parents. So, basically, an honor on the parents." His gaze dropped to Ma'akéné, and he was quiet for a minute before continuing. "It was then I was recognized as a full member of the tribe. And the moment I did, I gained far more responsibilities than I had when I was a child. Sometimes I wonder if it was worth it."

Ann wasn't sure how much he should reveal to her. After all, she wasn't part of his tribe, and wouldn't understand all the nuances and rituals that his tribe followed to ensure only the strongest joined the ranks of the adults and became responsible for the prosperity and survival of the tribe. But it was nice to talk, especially since they had been riding in silence for some time and would ride in silence again.

[DragonSong]

Riala winced slightly as he lapsed into silence, worried that she may have crossed a line, that he may regret sharing anything so personal. Most plains tribes were secretive of their individual practices both by nature and from hard-learned experience: of course he wouldn't want to talk about his family so easily.

"I'm, ah...sorry," she offered after a moment. "You don't have to--we don't have to keep talking about this if you don't want to."

Ortec, evidently distracted with trying to win at least Ma'akéné's attention if not her interest, gave a sharp toss of his head and hopped into two quick half rears. Riala glanced over tot he horses, distracted for a moment, then snorted and shook her head.

"Give it up, brother," she advised wryly. "You're starting to look desperate."

[Paladienne]

Ann shook his head, looking down at his half-nibbled root. "Don't be sorry. It's... I've never had to explain my tribe's beliefs with an outsider before. It's... they're hard to explain. I don't even understand them all myself. I only just became a man, after passing all the trials set before me by the chief. And that makes me an adult in the eyes of my tribe. So all my responsibilities are different now. It isn't... that I can't talk about them. It's that I don't know how to talk about them. It... they're hard to explain if you haven't lived your life around them."

He raised his eyes then to Ma'akéné and Ortec, a smile spread across his lips. His four-footed sister was pointedly ignoring the stallion in favor of the lush shoots of grass, her tail flicking back and forth with whiplike sharpness, betraying her slight annoyance at his antics. She wouldn't exactly nip him if he got too close, but she certainly would let him feel it if he tried to cajole her into doing something she didn't want. Ann leaned back on one hand and pointed at Ortec with his root.

"You'd best take care, Ortec! The females of my tribe are very picky about who gets to be close to them. If you're too annoying, she'll take a bite out of you." Ann called.

As if to accentuate his point, Ma'akéné lifted her head and snapped her teeth, stomping her hooves in a half-beat rhythm before she returned to eating. Her tail swished left and right, and her ears rotated toward Ortec, showing that she was simply playing with him. Maybe.

Ann burst out laughing, curling over on himself until he could regain his breath. "See?! I told you." He looked at Riala and grinned. "Picky."

[DragonSong]

"I don't blame her," Riala chuckled. "He's making a right ass of himself."

Ortec jerked his head around toward her, looking about as indignant as a horse could possibly look. She laughed again, a little harder, and winced as her still-healing ribs protested, but found that she didn't quite care. It was worth it. It felt good to laugh.

Sobering a bit, she glanced back at Ann again, then let her eyes drop to the ground, tracing absent patterns in the dry earth near where she sat.

"I can...understand that. Trying to explain is...difficult." What had happened to her wasn't exactly common practice among most tribes, at least as far as she understood.

What made it worse was knowing it was archaic, knowing it was--it was wrong. She was positive she wasn't the only one who felt that way, but no one had spoken up in an attempt to stop it, not after Lani...

"The chief," she said abruptly, still looking at the ground. "The one who ordered Lani's honor circle, I told you, remember?" And hers, though she didn't say that. He could easily put that together. "...He's my father."

[Paladienne]

"That's... awful."

Those words weren't exactly the best Ann could've used, but there were too many emotions and thoughts roiling around in his body and mind that he couldn't think of anything else to say. He couldn't even begin to imagine a parent turning against their child and doing things to that child that would decide the child's future. Or lack thereof. He couldn't even begin to imagine that Lani had had to face her own uncle in that circle. That the men she'd faced had done so at the behest of her own uncle. That she had been forced out, wounded, nearly killed, by someone who was supposed to be family.

"I'm..." Ann stopped, then started again, his voice lower, "I'm sorry for that, Riala. I really am."

He stretched out his legs before him and looked up toward the sky, the root forgotten in his lap. "You were forced to endure the same thing... weren't you? That's why you're here. Why we're here." Ann shook his head and looked toward her, offering her a smile. "Well... there's no need to worry about that anymore. We're going to get Lani, bring her back, and install her as your new chief. Then she can get rid of that practice for good. Right?"

[DragonSong]

"Right..."

Horse Lords, but she wished she could believe it would be that simple.

Riala exhaled sharply, then gave her head a brisk shake. "Well, it's not important now. We just have to focus on finding Lani. In Essyrn. With no idea where she might be." Or if she's even alive.

But, rather than sink back into her sulking, Riala gave herself another shake and tried for a smile. "No problem!"

Ortec snorted, giving her an incredulous look, evidently so exasperated by her forced attempt at levity that it had turned his attention from pestering the mare. "Oh... You hush," the huntress snipped at him, glowering--well, more like pouting, but she told herself it was glowering.

[Paladienne]

Ann gave Riala a small sardonic smile. "Acting defeated already? That's not like you, is it? What happened to the fierce girl that almost took my life back in the plains? Don't tell me that this false honor circle succeeded in killing her and all I have left as company for this journey is her shadow." He reached to poke her in the shoulder, prodding her as he'd do his younger siblings when he was teasing them. "You never know until you try. Can you really live with yourself never knowing Lani's fate?"

Ann shifted, rising to a crouch as he put his half-chewed root back into his pack and rose, stretching. He lifted his arms above his head, spread all his fingers, and arched backwards as if he were a bird spreading his wings, his eyes closing halfway as he did. There were a few pops in his lower spine, and then he rightened himself, shaking out his body before he brushed the grass and dirt off his rear. He turned his gaze to the sky, watching as the sinking sun began to throw the evening colors into sharp relief.

"And so maybe we don't find her. Maybe she's beyond our reach. But in that journey, we might discover that the plains are no longer for us. Maybe we'll discover that our place is in the world out there beyond tribes and duty and the tenets of our people." Ann held out his hand as Ma'akéné approached, and ran his palm over her velvet nose. "But say we do. Say we find Lani. What if she doesn't want to come back with us? What if she doesn't want to leave whatever life she's found in Essyrn? Maybe she's no longer a slave. Maybe she's a queen. Maybe she's the leader of her own band of raiders. Maybe she's turned her back on the land and has gone to sea."

He lowered his voice then as he pressed his forehead against his four-footed sister's, looking into her dark eyes. "But... unless we try, we won't know. Unless we discover the answer for ourselves, we won't be satisfied."

Ann turned his head then, looking at Riala, a smile on his face and his eyes bright. "You said the Horse Lords may not exist anymore, but what if you're wrong? What if they've been guiding you this entire time, and now have decided you're ready to take this journey? What if they've been talking to you this entire time, and you've just decided not to listen?"

He moved then to swing up onto Ma'akéné's back without waiting for Riala to answer and the mare tossed her head, snorting at Ortec as she passed, keeping to a slow walk so the stallion and his sister could easily catch up to them.

[DragonSong]

"No one said anything about defeated," Riala snipped back quickly. "I never said I'm going to give up. I'm well prepared to die trying to do this."

She paused, looking up at him when he stood while she remained seated in the grass.

She hadn't been lying. Going home was a death sentence. Staying out here was a death sentence. Finding Lani was likely a death sentence too, but she just didn't care anymore. There was no hope for her, as far as she was concerned.

But Ann...no matter what he said, she could see that it was almost all he was. Hope.

It was...blinding.

The huntress quickly snapped her eyes away before he could realize she'd been staring, giving her head a brisk shake as she got slowly to her feet as well, wincing. "If the Horse Lords wanna talk to be, they'd better fucking shout," she muttered in response to him, moving toward Ortec even as the stallion twisted his body around to twine around her like an affectionate cat. "I'd say it's gotten harder to hear them each time they let someone I love suffer and die."

She swung up onto her horse's back with another brief wince, but otherwise hid her pain fairly well. Honestly she was almost getting used to the general feeling of jagged soreness. "Let's move."

[Paladienne]

Ann only smiled as he heard Riala's snipe at his back, but he didn't bother to turn around and engage her. She was fiery enough without his goading, and she probably would hit him or stick him with an arrow if he needled her too much. She seemed to understand his point, so he didn't see the need to explain it to her. Whatever her reasons were for continuing to stay with him and refuse to lie down and never get up again, Ann wasn't going to push her down any path but forward. One always needed to move forward, his chieftain had said, because the past was the past. It couldn't be changed. It couldn't be altered. It couldn't be remade. But the future, that was a fluid, ever-changing thing, and it was what they made it to be. One decision could change the lives and fortunes of many. Tribes weren't built upon the ashes of the past but the flames of the future.

The lessons Ann had been taught as a small child resonated even now, driving him forward one step at a time. Whether this decision he'd made to accompany Riala, to save her life in the first place, made him a pariah among his own clan, then he would at least know that there were other options for him to pursue than what he'd once thought his future would be. All he would have to do was take the step toward that new life, and he wouldn't be alone. He would always have Ma'akéné, no matter what he decided or where he went. Whether there was anyone else to accompany him on the rest of his life journey, that remained to be seen.

He looked toward Riala as Ortec caught up to them, doing his best not to react to the scowl upon her face. She looked cute when she was angry, when her eyes shone with a fierce light that betrayed the warrior who lived in that frame of bruised flesh. Ann shook himself, then urged his four-footed sister into a slightly faster walk, looking to cover as much ground as possible before true night fell and they needed to make camp.

[DragonSong]

Riala was content to ride in silence for what light they had left until they needed to be making camp. It wasn't the same, sort of sulking silence she'd allowed herself to drift into before though, this was...something calmer, perhaps, warmer almost.

She still ached, though the physical pain was slowly becoming less than the mental and emotional scarring. That was an improvement of sorts, she supposed.

Feeling eyes on her, she glanced sidelong at her companion as Ortec fell into step beside Ma'akéné with a brief toss of his head, but by the time she'd turned her head Ann was looking forward once again--assuming he'd been looking at her at all, which she supposed was a rather self-centered suspicion, the realization of which made her flush and fix her own eyes on the horizon.