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 Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2014 3:17 pm
Yaholo's hammer was taking up all of Dyakida's concentration. She had to keep the threads and their colors straight, for one thing, and keep them lined up where she wanted them to be, a truly behemoth task for someone who could not see. But she refused to admit the impossible, and so she was doing this: wrapping embroidery thread around the hammer's grip and weaving feathers in as charms.
Yitzah had been pressed into helping – Dyakida was going to use every resource at her disposal for her friend. He deserved no less, and received so little. She felt the tap on her hand and, placing a pin to keep her place in her weave, turned her hand upward to receive whatever Yitzah wanted.
At first, she thought it was a finished charm, and she was pleased. But then, as she felt it, she frowned. ”Yitzah?” she asked, ”What is this?”
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Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2014 10:47 pm
Yitzah had no words, so she made a little sound in the back of her throat instead. It would have been difficult to describe her problem, even if she used the words that, increasingly, she did not want to come back.
She placed her hands on Dyakida's and moved her fingers through the tangles and knots. She was sorry – she'd screwed it up. Dyakida was really good at things like this, and Yitzah wanted to help, she really did, but she didn't know how to help without screwing it up even more.
She made the gutteral sound again, guiding Dyakida's hands to what looked like the source of the knots...
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Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 9:05 am
Seriously... what was it? Dyakida couldn't tell, despite the girl's insistent movements. ”Did you tangle it Yitzah?” she asked, feeling where her hand was guided, ”Do you want me to untangle it?” It was a sudden realization, and Dyakida found herself more annoyed than anything else. How was she expected to fix a tangle when she couldn't see it? She sighed in aggravation. ”Do you want me to do that? Is that what you're trying to tell me?” It was frustrating for Dyakida that the girl didn't – or refused to – speak. She took the thread snarl more firmly in her hand, ”Is it?”
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Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 9:08 am
Yitzah nodded vigorously, for what it was worth and placed the thread snarl in Dyakida's hands. It had just gotten away from her, and she was so sorry. She cringed, inwardly, at the frustration in Dyakida's voice and frowned, letting out a little keen.
She was sorry, and it wouldn't happen again – she'd be careful this time with it, she promised. She'd keep it from snarling again, she would! She'd pick up her next strands and be extra careful with them this time, she promised! She looked at the next few pieces of thread she was to work with intensely, as if she could implore them to behave with her eyes alone...
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Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 9:12 am
Dyakida sighed again and took the yarn into her own hands, feeling the intricate tangles with her sensistive hands. ”All right.” she said, setting the rest of her work aside for the time being, holding what needed to be held with pins. It would, she sensed, take a while.
Fortunately, her project was a gift. Yaholo would not be expecting his hammer, and so he would have it whenever it was done, and be happy for it. She hoped.
She began to work the threads out, bit by bit, feeling her way through their pathways contemplatively. ”Yitzah?” she began, but she stopped herself. She could not let her frustration get the better of her and upset her companion: she needed Yitzah's help for this project, after all. ”Mmm. Nevermind...” she said, her brow furling in concentration as she began to right the wrongs of the thread...
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Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 9:15 am
Yitzah looked up at her name, her small fingers pausing as she arranged the threads into the way their colors were supposed to go – she was going to try to make the charm again, and this time she would do it right and not tangle everything.
She frowned: she knew there was more to Dyakida than that question, and more to the question than what had been said. She made a querilous chirp and put a gentle hand on Dyakida's arm.
What? What did she want to ask? Yitzah would try to answer her.
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Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 9:18 am
”Mmm...” Dyakida murmured, as Yitzah placed her hand on her arm. It was remarkable how much could be communicated in a simple tone and a touch, remarkable especially that such a communication could exist as the only one between two people. Most had four senses, at the most, to communicate with: Smell, sight, hearing, and touch. Dyakida had been robbed of one of those, and so her whole world was smells and sounds and sensations. With Yitzah, it was hard because then she only had touch and very faint, ambiguous sounds. Still, they communicated, and Dyakida wondered if her question was really that important, after all.
”It's nothing, Yitzah.” she said, working out the thread from the tangle: she was making progress, and this pleased her. ”Truly, nothing at all.”
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Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 9:22 am
Yitzah tapped Dyakida's arm, a repetition of her question. Yitzah knew it wasn't nothing. It was something, something Dyakida cared about. When Dyakida said it was nothing, it meant she was lying. It meant she was a liar.
Liar
Yitzah tapped again and harder, suddenly annoyed. Dyakida was not supposed to lie to her. The Artisan would tell her what was bothering her so much, if it was that much indeed. She gave the artisan an insistant tug at her silence.
Tell me! she thought, exasperated, Tell me now
Yitzah didn't like secrets either.
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Posted: Sun Nov 30, 2014 10:25 am
Dyakida had little intention, now, of asking the girl her question and she could see now that it was a mistake to have started speaking before she had thought about it. She would never get the girl to let go of it now.
But she didn't want to ask her question: why the child refused or could not speak was none of Dyakida's business and she probably would get no answer anyway. It was pointless and frustrating and she should have known better.
Despite the child's insistence, she determined that she would not ask the question that bothered her.
”What do you want to do when you grow up, Yitzah?” she asked instead, though of course the girl could not tell her.
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Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2014 3:40 pm
Yitzah frowned at the question, perplexed. She knew what she wanted to be, but how to tell the artisan? Was it obvious enough to let nothing do the talking? No, otherwise, the question wouldn't have been asked. Even though all Alkidikes grew up to be warriors, Dyakida had asked, which meant Dyakida was expecting... something else?
No, Yitzah knew what she was going to be. She took Dyakida's hand and put it on her own, setting down the charm for the time being as she mimed, with her hands, a bow being drawn and loosed. She smiled up at Dyakida and returned the artisans hand to its task, pleased with her efforts and her use of her hands to communicate. She was sure Dyakida would understand.
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Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2014 3:43 pm
Dyakida frowned, unhappy at the intrusion that Yitzah's commandeering of her hand implied, but happy for an answer. Her frown faded into a smile as she recognized the posture of a bow.
”So. A blade of the bow.” she mused, ”I had worried...” she admitted, ”That you would try to take my path.” she laughed, a little nervously, ”Mine is a difficult path, and not one for a normal sister to take.”
Though, Yitzah was far from normal. ”I'm glad.” she said warmly, returning her hand to its work...
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Posted: Sun Dec 14, 2014 3:45 pm
Yitzah was pleased – both at being understood and at the response she had received. The child smiled, wanly – there had been a time when she had thought she could be an artisan, like Dyakida, but she knew now that that was unlikely.
She would be a blade instead, and it wouldn't matter because she would still be Dyakida's assistant, and maybe an artisan-warrior, like some of the older sisters she knew. She braided the charm in happy silence, pleased that Dyakida was glad...
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 11:17 am
A few weeks later, before the second battle of Neued
Dyakida rested from packing, her tools and supplies ready for the long march ahead of her. She had Peyla, and her sisters to guide and assist her, but it would still be rough going. Yitzah was helping her pack...
But Yitzah was not going with her. Dyakida wondered if the girl knew. It was hard to tell, with Yitzah's perpetual silence (unbroken for weeks now except for slight wordless exclamations and huffs) and Dyakida thought that, from the eagerness in her assistant's body, she might not realize this.
”Yitzah, please pass me my second dagger...” Dyakida asked, holding out her hand.
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 11:24 am
Yitzah finished folding the cloth for one of the packs and, with wordless pride, handed Dyakida the sheathed dagger.
War... Yitzah wondered what it was like. She hadn't gone the first time, but this time... this time she would see, and help, and work, for she was Dyakida's assistant and Dyakida was going to work there.
Wars had sides, didn't they? Theirs and the enemy's? The girl was sure that their side would win. Dyakida was on it, after all, and Yitzah was proud to be her apprentice...
Assistant she reminded herself, as she watched Dyakida's tall, lithe body move nimbly among the packs. I'm going to be a blade, not an artisan... and she would protect and help Dyakida in doing so.
She turned her attention back to the packs. Her own pack was in her room – she was putting everything she needed into it. Food, her toy doll, a cape... whatever she needed to get through the war. She was sure that Dyakida would give her a bow to shoot the bad people with. Or...
Her eyes widened at the thought.
Or maybe the other side were the bug people, the monsters that had killed her sisters.
No. I'd know if they were. The bug people were secret and hidden and bad, and Yitzah would hunt them out.
She finished folding the cloth and thought of the pack beasts that they would use. They were big, but ridable bugs of a plodding sort. Yitzah liked them... they were not bad. They'd bought a few and she had had a small bit of fun feeding them fruits. They had taken the fruits with solemn chittering and working of their mandibles, and she had laughed.
She looked forward to feeding them on the trip...
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Posted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 11:29 am
Dyakida secreted the dagger – a well-worked spare – into a secret, accessible pocket of her pack, and patted it, its contents finished.
”Is that all the materials, Yitzah?” she asked the girl, turning in her general direction and placing a hand on her head, ”Do we have the crystal pieces, the wooden staves, the worked arrows, the flint...” she ran through her mental list, ”The smaller crystals, the thread, the fletching feathers, stone, ink...” she frowned, her brow furrowing as she tried to remember all the important items. ”Herbal treatments, those orange flowers, varnish, oil, dyes... Metal...” she gave a quiet shudder. Metal was difficult for her to work with, and something made her wary – slightly – of its unfamiliar coldness. It felt... un noble, thirsty in a way her crystal and wood did not. But, she supposed, she would get used to it. It was just unfamiliar, that was all. ”Do we have those?” she asked, ”Are we missing anything?”
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