Welcome to Gaia! ::

“Oh, my…it must have been terrifying,” Jak said. “There are dangers in traveling always, of course, but with my family, many as we are, we’re rarely targeted. It’s a wonder they didn’t harm you, or take everything you owned. There is a special place in the worlds beyond for the souls of those who steal in life and commit violence upon others, I believe, and it isn’t pleasant.”

Jakkoa’s family — nomadic as they were and in the constant business of travel and trade between the nations and cities therein of Sauti, Zena, and Tale — made their home in a canvas covered wagon, durable and built for travel. They had two quhar, tasked either with pulling the wagon or its parts, and three capramel, for milk and occasional breeding. They also had a traveling cart for additional storage, which could either be hitched behind the main wagon, or pulled separately for smaller trips. As Jak arrived with his company, the older of his two younger sisters, Alise, peeked out from the wagon bed, stared for a half moment, and then, flashing a devilish grin, hopped down and skirted around the side of it, dashing off with a call for their parents.

Jakkoa set his load at the back of the wagon, near to the spare cart. It could all be loaded and properly packed later. For now, he could already smell the smoke of a fire underway, and a minute later, his father appeared, Alise in tow. Tammok — a pure blooded wind merchant and short for a man with only a barely broader figure than Jak himself, but stubbled with a graying blond beard — looked to his son, and then Rham at his side. His smile was reserved, but genuine.

“And who this young man, Jakkoa…? Are we having company this evening?”

“He’s just returned from a long trip on his own, Papa, and had no connections in the area. I told him he’d be welcome for supper, at least,” Jak said, leaving his explanation at that to give Rham a chance to introduce himself in his own way.

A smile tugged at Jakkoa’s lips, characterized by quiet amusement as Rham described his siblings as ‘stealthy.’ “They…are many things. Though I’m sure it would please them to hear that you thought as much. The one you just saw is Alise, the eldest. They’re aged eight, six, and three. All my father’s children, but born of my step-mother.”

After his father’s introduction and Rham’s admittedly surprised, but pleasant greeting, the older man nodded, taking the hand and shaking it. “Tammok,” he said. “And I see you’ve met my son, Jak…far be it from me to turn away a fellow hungry traveler. My wife and family will welcome your company to dinner.” He glanced to Jak at the mention of bedding arrangements, but said nothing on the subject, assuming — Jak guessed — that he and his guest would work that out when the time came, which suited Jak perfectly.

Tammok took the lead, then, helping Jak and his company to put away the goods for the day before they headed back as a group to where Palvari, Jakkoa’s step-mother, was at work about a campfire, food underway. The air had gone crisp with evening, cooler every minute as the sun sank, and the winds that skirted over the crags only added to the chill, but a small windbreaker had been set up by their camp, discouraging the worst of it, and near to the fire, things were warm and homey.

Jak turned his attention to Rham. “You’re welcome to sit and wait if you like,” he said. “Supper will be ready shortly. But you mentioned bathing…we do have a wash basin, screen, and soaps if you’d feel more comfortable doing so first. I’d be careful not catch chill, though, dark as it’s getting.”

Jak chuckled. “Horrendously,” he said. Then, though, he shook his head. “Not at all. Only like the mountain winds and an honest day’s work.”

After saying it, Jak moved to aid his step-mother in finishing off the meal prep, returning with two bowls just in time to hear the soft rumble—and more importantly see the heat of Rham’s blush, at which point the corner of his lips edged up, amused. He sat at the boy’s side, offering up one of them with a subtle arch of his eyebrows.

“You relax,” he said, “and eat. When did you last eat with company? You needn’t be so nervous. I—” Jak paused as, from the side, the elder of his two younger sisters, Alise, strutted around with her bowl, and plopped to a sit a half foot from Rham’s opposite side, her blue eyes wide, and focused. Jak’s eyebrows raised further. “Alise—”

“Are you here because you want to travel with us? Or because you think Jak’s pretty.”

“It’s okay,” Alise said, dropping her voice to a ‘whisper’, though the words were still completely audible not only to Rham, surely, but Jak also. “He likes it when people think he’s pretty. I think he is t—”

“Alise,” Jak said, tone cautionary. “Why don’t you leave my friend be a moment and come sit over beside me, hmmm? He’s had a very long journey and could use the rest.”

For a moment, she eyed him, eyes large, and he thought perhaps he would get as requested. Then, she shook her head rapidly, blonde curls bobbing, and Jak opened his mouth to re-iterate, but the next moment, she was turning her attention to her food, and he supposed, so long as she kept quiet a while, it didn’t harm anything to let her do that much unless Rham objected. So, he let it be, settling with his own food and letting it cool a moment.

“Months,” he reiterated in the meantime. “It must have been lonely to be alone so long. Did you not even band at some points with fellow travelers? It sounds so trying to have no one around…unless, I suppose…” He gave a tip of his head, “…you’re simply more comfortable that way. I just can’t imagine it. I’d find it desolate in that much solitude. But, regardless, you needn’t be nervous here. We have guests for supper frequently and you’re no bother.”

Jakkoa listened, watching Rham as he did and eventually lifting his spoon as the other spoke. After blowing carefully, he ate, and waited until the other came to another pause before speaking up again himself.

“It sounds lonely to me,” he said, “but also as though it suits you more so than I. I imagine traveling mostly alone provides its own freedoms, too, to not be bound to any strict path. The ‘daze’ though…perhaps it is time you find more opportunities to engage. Even the most solitary of souls needs company from time to time to remind it that we are all a communal people.”

At mention of ‘the news’ Jakkoa tipped his head, waiting for explanation.

When it didn’t come, he initiated himself. “‘The news’…?”

Gold eyes flicked over his company, studying the range of reactions. Though most wouldn’t take him for the sort — terms like ‘flighty’, ‘shallow’, and ‘petty’ more likely to be assigned to him by the casual observer — he was attentive, and took in the finer details, from the set of the other young man’s posture, to his grip, to his voice tone.

At length, Jakkoa hummed, finishing with what he had but letting the bowl sit neatly in his lap as he studied his company before speaking up. “In my experience, the surest way to get over anything is to disassociate yourself from it, and find something else to occupy the same space that the thing you wish to replace used to fill…or at least some similar, equally engaging space. Though I am sure some would argue the point to the ends of this earth and back, I for one am of the firm opinion that no one is quite so special as we imagine them to be when we’re excited by what we like about them. If he has moved on, so should you. Why waste energy on someone who does not consider you worthy of the same expenditures?”

With that, he stood, taking a moment out to put his bowl with the others already emptied and helping for a moment with the tidying of that before returning to his company, though for a protracted moment, he remained standing: in front of Rham and backlit by the orange gold of firelight as he eyed him.

“Have you decided if you intend to rest here for the night? You may share space beside mine, particularly if you find the open night too cold for your liking.” Jak tipped his head. “It might also help with occupying some space in your mind, if you were so inclined.”

Rham was a distracted sort. That much was obvious, and while Jakkoa was certain before that the young man had been flirting with him, in the dark of late evening, as dinner was finished and the trappings of the day fell away, he couldn’t be so sure at all anymore whether the boy was interested in the least. After a moment’s debate, he opted to leave the metaphorical cards where they lie — nodding but not pressing the subject and returning to help his stepmother and sisters finish packing the makings of dinner.

When all was set away and done, his father and Palvari set off to bed as did his younger siblings. On a different night, he would have settled his bedding in the back corner of their traveling wagon near to where Amarda slept, but in this case — since he had made his offer and since curiosity still nagged at him — he returned to the semi-shadows of the dying fire, dropping his bedroll near enough to the coals that their soft orange light still sent flickers of light to the ground where he unfurled it, but not enough to be distracting when the time for sleep came.

But that time was not quite yet upon him.

He turned gold eyes on his company, leaning forward to begin unfastening his boots as he watched the other and mentally weighed his options. “Well,” he said at length, “are you going to come here? I promised you a spot beside me if you wanted it. And I don’t think you ever gave me your full opinion on my lip gloss.”