Failure!

If any group of people was known for spreading rumors and sharing gossip, it was the nobility of Oba. As long as Ichil had been alive she had been audience to the upper class dragging themselves through the mud and whispering about this or that. There were backstabbers and pot-stirrers and vengeful spitters and worried ninnies, although often it was just a woman who felt the compulsion to share everything she heard regardless of source of validity. Ichil had never been a part of these discussions herself. She viewed them with ambivalence and absorbed all of the idiocy but never repeated a rumor until and unless it was proven to be fact, which really never happened.

In this way, the young noblewoman had begun hearing about the Alkidike threat to the rest of Tendaji. The Obans had just rushed in on the offensive without warning, but for some reason the supporters of this feat found the idea of others mimicking them to be quite offensive. She knew of the Alkidike. She had been forced to deal with a few on her way through Jauhar to acquire her bow. They did seem a bit prickly, but could they be blamed? Her people had rushed headlong into their world and started stabbing their family members and friends at will, she wouldn't expect them to be kind. Her experience had been mostly with a small group of Shifters, but it stood that she knew what Alkidikes were and that they had a tendency to prefer their own kind. Fine. Frankly she didn't think anyone was going to be attacking anyone else so soon after a war, but there were extremists in every case. There were Obans who still shouted against the other Earthlings as if they'd been cheated of owed land. It was the crazies you had to worry about. That's why nobility had guards.

Recently, however, the rumors had been more common outside the sprawling estates of those lucky enough to be born into money. Word was traveling the streets that a clan of extremist Alkidike were planning some sort of an attack, though entirely unsupported by any reasonable evidence.

Ichil was dressed in commoners' clothes, unarmed, exploring the city as usual after an escape from the family estate. Other races were starting to filter into Oba for one reason or another and it was becoming more common to see a red-burned Earthling traipsing through the market. Personally, Ichil didn't mind it so much. It was a little weird, sure, but she had experienced a sort of change. Perhaps the others were not lesser, not savage, just a different type. She even offered the cute foreign boys charming smiles when she came across them. Today, though, it was an Alkidike that haggled over prices with a local food vendor. The discussion looked more heated than a discrepancy over prices.

"It's that or nothing!" the vendor shouted, gesturing angrily.

"Incorrigible sand-dwelling--! You--!" The Alkidike seemed too angry to form a complete sentence at first, then words burst forth in one great torrent. "May Aisha curse your damnable race!"

That appeared to be the wrong thing to say, as the vendor rushed around the side of his stall and began shouting.

"OUT! GET OUT! WE DON'T WANT YOUR KIND! IGNORANT, FRENZIED MASSES!"

That was it. The Alkidike grabbed the vendor by his shirt and popped him one right across the face. That probably wasn't going to gain her any allies in this fight. The vendor began to fight back and his son lunged in, joining the fray. Ichil rushed at the conflict with intent to stop it, but how? She'd left her bow at home! Oba was never this tense, this violent!

"Stop this!" she called, unsure who to grab or what to do. Dressed as a civilian she had no authority unless recognized, and even then she doubted anyone would care. The sun turned to her and shouted back.

"Mind your own business!" He shoved Ichil hard and she fell back, sitting in shock on the dirt for a moment and then standing with an angry cry. How dare he?! She might have tried to reenter or coerce one of the gathering audience to help, but the Alkidike suddenly pitched the vendor to the ground and shrugged off his son, getting him hard in the gut with a knee. While the men reeled, the Alkidike took a free moment to turn and jog away.

Brow still creased with anger, Ichil watched her go.

wc: 751