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 Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2023 5:08 pm
Maia 1 Heaving a sigh, Maia left the large building, glad to be finished with all her preparations for the trip. The furniture was gone. Her unimportant possessions were gone. Those few she did care about were put away somewhere for safe keeping for when, or if, she ever returned to collect them. If she didn't, no big loss. She would send a letter to the person holding them for her with instructions on what to do with them should she not be interested in keeping them any longer. The only instance she could think of to return for them would be if she found somewhere else to settle down. For good this time. But that was such a unlikelihood. She couldn't imagine herself ever settling in one place even by herself. Even here, the small house she had had been more for storage than anything else. She rarely used it otherwise.
Now it was gone and there was little left for her in this city. She was free to spread her wings and see where the future would take her.
First, though, that future was going to take her through the market for a quick resupply of her stock. Maybe some jerky. Dried fruit and nuts. The rope she kept hanging off the side of her bag was looking a little frayed. Perhaps it was time to get a new one while she was here.
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Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 11:21 am
Doesina 1 Maia wasn't the only one shopping around for supplies. Somewhere close by, looking over an outside stall featuring fruit snacks, was Doesina, preparing for her own much longer trip across the ocean back to Yael. It wasn't for a while yet, but she still wanted to bring something back for Heike from the market to eat. Something different than the hard nuts they had been eating for days now, to go along with their fresh hunted meat. The Elaria had been trading any of the leftover meat, hide, and other parts depending on the animal with the locals for money, slowly saving up enough to spend on days like this, to restock. She would have loved to have used part of it on a meal somewhere, but Heike would never ever agree to going inside an Earthling settlement unless she had no choice. With lots of hunting opportunities in the forest, it was a safe bet Doesina would always be going into Neued on her own. Not that she minded so much anymore. Not now that she had made many friends with the locals. It was an exciting day when she could go into town and talk with them for a little bit before returning back to their camp spot far away.
Picking up a small bag of the fruit pieces, the Elaria thanked the seller and looked away, noting a bright blue head among the crowd of mostly monochrome colors, with the odd yellow or red of a Wind or Oban. She watched the owner of it bobbing around between the stalls, wondering why it was sparking some distant memory with her.
Until it hit her!
Excited about seeing an old acquaintance from so long ago, Doesina started waving her arms above her head, yelling "Hey!" to get the Shifter's attention, while also moving her body forward. People turned to watch her, curious.
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Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 2:01 pm
Maia 2 All the stalls along the side of the street were so tempting to look at. One had colorful necklaces made from shiny stones and beads in all different shapes. Another had tasty looking candy from all the way from Belrea. Maia weighted the coin purse dangling from her belt. She probably had enough to indulge a little if she wanted to. But did she want to? She wasn't sure what Oba was like. Maybe she would need all her leftover coins to survive over there until she was fully settled into the new environment. Spending all her coins just because something looked delicious would be irresponsible.
In fact, buying anything from most of the outdoor sellers would be irresponsible. Not because they were bad quality. Most of them were not. They were just artisans of a certain craft who hadn't been able to snag a spot in a shop to sell their goods, so took to the streets on their own. Or some didn't want to be tied up to a shopkeeper. No, the problem here was most of the things they sold were trinkets or luxuries or food. Not anything she needed for a big trip. What did she need of a pretty necklace? She didn't really wear jewelry. She didn't need brooches or hand-made scarves.
Still, it was difficult to pass them by and not look at least. Sometimes it was possible to find what she was actually looking for from one.
As Maia moved forward a few steps, she was suddenly aware of a quiet descending on the street around her. It amplified another sound. She looked up and around, seeing a grey Aishan woman looking in her direction and shouting. The Shifter's eyes went wide, memories still fresh of the last time an Aishan had targeted her in Neued.
What did this one want? Could she run and get away? Probably not. At least there were no alleys nearby she could be pulled into. She was safe out in the crowd.
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Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 5:39 pm
Doesina 2 The worried expression on the Shifter's face didn't register with Doesina until she got closer, still waving her arm above her head as if she expected the other woman to not realize she was talking to her after all, despite the intense stare the Elaria was giving her. The smile dropped quickly off her own face when she did get closer, seeing the lack of recognition on her face.
"Oh," she said, lowering her arm back to her side, the other hand still holding tightly to the small bag of fruit snacks. "You don't remember me? We met once, just outside by the road." She pointed back behind her where she knew the entrance to the city was. A few people shied away from her, equally not understanding what was going on. "I was looking for my cousin."
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Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2023 5:58 pm
Maia 3 Try as she might, Maia just couldn't remember this woman. It made no sense to her. It wasn't like she met all that many people as it were, you'd think she could remember meeting such a strange one. Not an Alkidike. Not the same as the other one she could remember vividly, who had almost gotten her in serious trouble when she was still a naive teenager. But not this one. Strange.
Still, she decided the easiest path would be to play along.
"Sure. Yeah," she answered very unconvincingly. Clearing her throat, she tried once more, not used to this sort of polite small talk with others. Normally she came into town, dropped off her stuff, and restocked a bit at the same local businesses before leaving once more for a few weeks of pure solitude. Unless she needed to drop by a village every so often, Maia kept clear of others. "Did you find her?" Assuming her, knowing Aishans were an all female race. The chances of this cousing being a male hybrid instead were much more slim.
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Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2023 2:05 pm
Doesina 3 If she was bothered at all by the reaction of the other woman, Doesina didn't let it show, not even in her own thoughts.
"Ah huh! I did!" she answered enthusiastically, raising her arms up to do an excited gesture with her hands. "It took a while, but I did. Not that I expected to find her too quickly, a forest as large as this is." There was also the risk of never finding her and wandering the forest for years herself, not knowing it was a futile effort. She had no way of being in contact with her family back on Yael for news. If Heike had decided to change direction to Oba or Tale, how would she ever have known? She felt so lucky to have found her at all. And for her cousin to have returned the favor by finding her after her business in Emeka was finished. It wasn't as if Doesina had been making efforts to be easily found herself by that point. Staying in one spot for a long time was difficult for her. At least if she didn't have a home to return to at the end of the day.
Realizing she'd only been talking about herself, the Elaria lowered her arms and lookd sheepishly at the Shifter. She wasn't even sure if she'd asked anything not race-related the last time they had met. That wasn't very polite. "So what are you doing? Checking out the stalls? There's a lot of pretty jewelry out today, I noticed."
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Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2023 8:25 am
Maia 4 "That's good." the Shifter replied awkwardly, not sure what else to say. She didn't really care if the cousin was found or not, it wasn't like it had any effect on her life whatsoever. Maybe if the cousin was that one Aishan she had met who turned her day into a jail sentence and than bailed on her, that would be different. But what were the chances of that being the same person?
Maybe if Maia was aware of how few Elidae there were in the world compared to the others or how far away Kiros was, she would have been thinking differently. For it was entirely possible they were the same person.
"I'm not...Jewelry shopping." The only part of her that was carefully put together was her hair. The same hairstyle every day, she had been putting it up like that for so long that the whole process felt as easy as wrapping your hair in a single tie down your back. She wore no ornaments in it nor had any jewelry anywhere on her body. No extra accessories in her clothes. She thought it an odd thing to mention, the jewelry. Maybe the Elaria before her, with the necklace dangling down close to her cleavage and the small bands around her antenne was more interested in that sort of thing and thus just had it on the brain. "I'm planning to go somewhere and need to get some new supplies for it."
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Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2023 11:01 am
Doesina 4 "Thank you!" Doesina continued to be oblivious to how bored the other woman was by the life update she was giving. Or perhaps she was and was choosing to ignore it, still. Already, her brain was moving onto other subjects, ones a little more interesting to her at present.
"A trip? Where are you going? I'm planning one, too. Back home to Yael." What would it be like to go back, she wondered. She'd spent so long looking at the tall trees of Jauhar, she was almost afraid she might not recognize the wilderness of her own home. The trees would seem so small and fragile in comparison to here. "I was also shopping for some supplies. There's a shop further up the street that sells delicious looking fruit snacks." And she held up her bag for the woman to inspect, shaking it a little bit between her fingers.
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Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2023 11:53 am
Maia 5 Opening her mouth to speak, Maia closed it and hesitated without uttering a single word. She had never been very superstitious, but this time saying it out loud for the first time on her own made her worry she would break some spell. What nonsense, she chided to herself. The world wasn't that fragile that a single word could change the course of your life forever like that.
"I am going to Oba for work." There. It was out. No supernatural, paranormal force was going to change it. The Gods weren't going to change the course of the future themselves. She just had to trust that her gamble in trusting two strangers to return for her had been a correct one. You couldn't advance through life without taking a few risks, though, right? She took one when she left home. Now she would take another by leaving Jauhar entirely.
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Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2023 3:38 pm
Doesina 5 "Oh! Exciting!" Truly, Doesina did feel excitement over the other's trip. Maybe she was super sensitive to the atmosphere around her, but she never found it difficult to get into the possible mindset of the one she was talking to. To understand how they might be feeling. Besides, if she was going to Oba, even for work, she'd feel pretty excited. Until coming to Jauhar, she'd never left Yael. It was one of the reasons she volunteered to go looking for Heike, so she could experience more of the world than the wilderness of northern Yael.
Even if it was a bit harder to breath here in the beginning, until her lungs got used to it. It still felt very dry some days more than others.
"What do you do for work?" Was she being nosy? Yes. Did she care? Not really. Having a conversation with someone meant getting to know them. And how else did you get to know someone than ask them tons of questions?
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Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2023 6:37 pm
Maia 6 Once more, Maia hesitated. What did she do? Well, she wandered the woods, looking for random things on the ground to bring back to Neued to sell. She didn't go down any tunnels or dive into the ocean or even explore any random ruins she found all that closely. It was embarrassing to admit that was all she had been doing. It hadn't occurred to her until now had lame that actually was. Not until it had been pointed out to her. She couldn't have done that for the rest of her life. Eventually she would run out of forest to explore. And than what? Than would she have gone a little deeper?
"I, uh....Look for treasure, I guess you could say. Things from the past that might be hiding in the forest in plain sight."
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Posted: Sat Sep 09, 2023 12:58 pm
Doesina 6 "Treasures. Mm." Doesina repeated the word, not sure what it meant in this context. That was such a subjective word. Was she looking for gold? Rare plants? Or, judging by what she said next, maybe artifacts of the past? All of them sounded interesting to the Elaria. But than most of what the Earthlings did she thought was so fascinating. To be able to go through your life by your own rules, trying out different things to find what you wanted to do for the rest of it. That kind of freedom she could only dream about. Not that being a warrior stopped her from having hobbies. Even her grandmother, despite being really strict about making sure her granddaughter kept up with her training, had her own set of hobbies that she liked to unwind with at the end of a long day. But it wasn't the same as what an Earthling could do.
"Like pieces of the old world that people left behind in the dirt? Things you find in a musuem? I've never been inside one of those, but I have seen colections kept by other Sisters that go back hundreds of years, passed down through their families. My grandmother has some old things of her grandmother."
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Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2023 11:44 am
Maia 7 Maia shifted her weight around on her feet, leaning first on one side and than the other. Embarrassment coursed through her body. She tried her best to swallow it down, but she could feel her cheeks starting to burn. That still sounded so lame. Looked for treasures. Children went wandering the forest, looking for treasures. Adults looked for history. Rare things. Anything to bring back and share with others. That's what she wanted to do, help bring history back to life. The world was full of things still left uncovered, hidden from time. She wanted to bring those back to the light. At least that was what she wanted to do now. Maybe when she first started out, it was about the treasure. When she hadn't been as picky about what she found. That first piece of pottery had seemed useless to her. But Kieran had showed her that no, even a piece of pottery or anything else that looked broken and more like someone's trash than anything important, could in fact be something important. No one had taught her the difference until now. She didn't feel qualified to explain it to this woman.
"I guess like that," she admitted, "Things that people left behind from long ago. At least that's what I want to do."
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Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2023 12:02 pm
Doesina 7 The embarrassment was easy to see on the Shifter's face, spreading easily to her cheeks and the tip of her nose. It had a somewhat calming affect on the Elaria, making her pause before she could spit out even more questions.
"I'm sorry if I ask too much at once. My grandmother is always telling me to calm down." She giggled softly at a memory of it, one of the most recent she had. It hadn't been long before she had left for Jauhar, in fact, when she had first learned she had more family from a younger tree. She had instantly started the barrage of questions at Mayella, wanting to know everything about her aunt and cousin. Until her mother and grandmother both had to yell to get her to stop. Sometimes it was difficult to calm down. Doesina had so much energy, she didn't know what to do with it sometimes. "I just think it's so interesting how much you Earthlings can do. I want to learn all about it."
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Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2023 2:37 pm
Maia 8 The crowds around them grew thicker for a moment as a small group of people tried to push past them to get to a shop's open door. Maia side-stepped out of the way, making sure any doorway or stall was completely clear behind her. She shook her head, feeling the long curls that cupped her face brushing against her cheeks and chin. "No. I don't mind the questions. I'm just not...Sure how to answer some of them." The friendly demeanor of this Aishan was putting her completely at ease. Before she was fully aware of what she was doing, she continued. Sharing so much with anyone was not very characteristic of her. "I'm still trying to learn how to do this properly. This is an opportunity for me to learn."
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