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 Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2016 1:42 pm
Nikaio’s brows pinched together as he glanced towards the fire and the meat roasting in it. “Define...weird,” Nika said as he threw a glance towards Akiyal. Truth be told, Nikaio had consumed many a ‘weird’ things due to his troupe’s moving around a lot. He’d definitely ate things that weren’t common in a normal Matori’s diet. So, as it was, Nika really wasn’t sure what others would consider weird. Though he assumed that what was cooking in the fire wasn’t all too weird. He’d seen the hunting group come back with a rather large beast they’d already skinned and prepared away from the camp. All he knew, at the moment, was that it smelled rather nice and he couldn’t wait to dig in. Nika shrugged and gave the other boy a small, lopsided grin. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it won’t kill us. I’ll grab us some food.” And with that, Nika was off, snatching a couple of plates and dishing out the servings of meat before returning and handing Akiyal his. “Eat up.”
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Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2016 1:34 pm
Akiyal's nose wrinkled. In all fairness, Aki wasn't especially picky. His father ate most anything, and the young Wind boy had grown up eating whatever Xilarn prepared. But in the moment, it struck him as unlikely that strange, foreign fish people would eat anything Aki was familiar with. Whatever these people were familiar with preparing was probably slimy or smelly, maybe covered in dirt or scales. And he had no way of knowing if they could even do it properly, like Xil did. Trusting Janella's cooking was hard enough. He didn't even know these people.
Aki grunted out a quiet thanks as Nika returned with two plates. Fortunately, the food didn't smell bad, and it looked mostly similar to the meaty slabs his dad usually served him. Maybe a little different. Less flourish to this one. But edible none the less. Akiyal spared a quick glance to Kan, who was eating with slightly less reservation, before he shrugged his shoulders and took a tentative bite.
Well, it wasn't terrible, and he had said he was starving.
Between mouthfuls and staring curiously at the other members of Nikaio's troupe, another curiosity sprung to Aki's mind. And then several more almost immediately. "Hey, where do ya'll usually sleep? If you don't got no home, that must mean you've got no bed. And what'chu do for walls when you're traveling? What if you run out of stuff for everybody? When you come upon a town, do ya stop in town, or beside it? What if nobody wants to see you do... er, whatever you do, when you get there?"
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Posted: Sat Jul 30, 2016 1:00 pm
Nikaio raised an eyebrow at Akiyal’s questions, a small smile curling up his lips as he let a small snort of a laugh escape. “Woah there. What’s with the third degree, hm?” Nika finished off his food and sat his plate off to the side. “Sometimes we stay in town. Sometimes we don’t. It really depends on how much money we have and if there is room for everyone in our troupe — or at least the women and children. If there’s not, we set up camp outside of town. So we usually don’t have walls — our walls are the trees and fauna around us.” Nika raised his arms and gestured at the camp surrounding them. “We’re staying here tonight. We have bed rolls and there’s room in a couple of the caravans for the youngsters and elderly in our group.” He frowned at the last question and glanced away. “We deal with it. Sometimes people don’t want our kind around and we just have to move on — whether we need the money or not. When that happens we try to live off of the land as much as we can. But it can be hard, depending on where we are.” Nika shrugged slightly and took a swig of his drink. “This life isn’t easy but it sure does beat being stuck in one place all the time. I’ve seen almost every place in Tendaji so far.”
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Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2016 1:53 pm
Hm, Nikaio's whole life sounded so... circumstantial, with lots of 'maybes' and 'ifs' and a great potential for nightly discomfort. Akiyal could hardly even begin to fathom what all that meant. He'd had a home with walls for practically as long as he could remember, though he often fancied that that was not the case when he'd lived with his mother. Of course, he'd been too young at the time to have much memory of it now. Still, she'd been a 'go where the wind takes her' kind of woman, and Aki imagined he took after her in that regard.
Although... He glanced sidelong toward Kan and could practically feel the agitation in the older boy. No doubt Kan wanted to get home. He had hopes that his mother had made it back there, though Aki hadn't seen evidence of any such thing. Even if she wasn't, Xilarn would be back, and he'd probably know how to go about finding Janella.
They should go home. They should.
Akiyal found that he didn't especially want to. He was tired of being stuck there, and he'd been tired of it for quite some time.
He tapped his utensils lightly to the dish, just for the sound of it. "Does sound like it can be hard sometimes," he admitted with a shrug. "And I'm prolly not the best for tackling difficult things, but-" Well, no, he didn't want to start that way. Aki tried again. "Well, I'm not unused to travelin' or sleepin' on the ground. Where ya'll heading next, anyway?"
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Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2016 9:34 am
“It can be difficult at times,” Nika said, agreeing with Akiyal’s words and raising an eyebrow as the other boy continued to talk. When his next question came, Nika was taken slightly by surprise. Why on earth did he care where Nika and his troupe were heading next? Him and his friend would be going on their own way come the next morning — and the chances of the two groups traveling in the same direction were pretty rare. Nika shrugged, though, glancing towards the fire and tilting his head some. “We’re headed a bit more south into Tale. We have plans to set up outside of the two cities, Yware and Vers. Some of our troupe are wanting to look into getting kinfa and we figured it’d be a good opportunity to take advantage of — being so close to two towns.” He absently flipped the utensil, in his hand, around “After that, I’m not really sure. We’ll likely send a couple of groups ahead — comprised of a couple of people each — while we’re putting on our shows. They’ll scout out different towns that are the closest to where we’re already at and report back. It really just depends on what’s going on in other places and how busy the town is and such.”
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Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2016 5:20 pm
Further south. Deeper into Tale. The wrong direction, to be sure. Akiyal couldn't say he was especially surprised by that fact. He'd figured as much would be the case at some point, even if it wasn't immediate. Vaguely, he wondered what the chances were of convincing Nikaio and his troupe to just... not travel south. Probably low. He eyed the young Water male.
Very, very low.
It would be easier to convince Kan, who was just one stupid boy, rather than an entire clan. He shrugged his shoulders and leaned as far backward as he could on the log without toppling over. "Y'know, we dunno where we're going so much," he admitted, just in case it hadn't been obvious. "Dunno where we're going or what we're doin'. And that's fine, for a time, but it might be nice if we... joined forces, let's say?" He shot Nika a coy grin. "I ain't good at dancin' or singin', but I'm nice to look at."
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Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2016 11:27 am
Nikaio raised an eyebrow, a small smirk spreading across his face as Akiyal spoke. It was a litlte amusing that this stranger had happened upon his little troupe and was now showing interest in joining them. Had he always thought about doing so or was it something the other boy had thought of on a whim — something to pass the time and not be completely serious about. Nika gave a small shrugged and glanced back out to the fire. “You wanna join our troupe, hm? Think you could handle this sort of life? And there’s more to it than dancing and showing off a pretty face.” Nika glanced back towards Aki, eyebrow raising again. “It’s a lot of hard work and pitching in on chores even when you don’t want to.”
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Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2016 4:24 pm
Did he think he could handle it? Akiyal scoffed softly and tossed his head, flicking hay-colored strands out of his face. So what if he decided to do anything on a whim? So what if there were chores and hard work and whatever else Nikaoi thought Aki might be disinterested in? It wasn't as if he had decided for sure that he wanted to stay at all. There was still the night left yet to think about it.
But the adventure. It sounded like potentially the great adventure he may ever have the chance to know. It was a promising thought.
"If I were you, I wouldn't worry about what I could 'n couldn't handle, Fishie," Aki hummed, tipping his head in Nika's direction and beaming at him far too broadly. "If I get to be too troublesome to keep around, you can just boot me, mm? In the meantime, think of the opportunity. You got another spry, manly, handsome as sin Wind man just waltzing through camp looking all fine and whatnot? I. Don't. Think. Sooo."
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2016 1:44 pm
Nikaio snorted, a small smirk forming on his face as he shook his head at the wind boy. He really was full of himself, wasn’t he? Nika couldn’t half blame him. Akiyal was nice to look at. And Nika wondered how much nicer the boy would be in the light of morning instead of the light from the camp fire roaring in front of them. He rolled his eyes at the ‘fishie’ comment and looked away from Aki. “If you really want to join us, I’ll talk to my father tonight. Then in the morning he can talk with the others elders in charge of the troupe. They’ll determine whether you can stay or not. And they’ll probably want to talk to your friend and you.” Nika raised an eyebrow, glancing off in the direction of the other stranger. “Speaking of which, don’t you think you should talk to him about this first? What if he doesn’t wanna stick around? Seems like something you should discuss with your traveling partner, yeah?”
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Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2016 10:56 am
"Well, that sounds lame," Akiyal grunted disinterestedly as he shot his new friend a just vaguely peeved look through narrowed eyes. The way Nika said it made it seem like a lot of people needed to agree to this whole set-up. Not that Aki minded being the topic of anyone's discussion, but he hadn't exactly planned on needing permission. Which probably wasn't a fair assumption if he really stopped to think about it. What really mattered was that he didn't want to have to impress a bunch of old people. Because that seldom worked in his favor.
He scuffed his foot in the dirt and rolled his shoulders back. "Maybe you can convince them without the need for all that hoopla. Sounds like a lot of effort to go through for two dumb kids, 'Specially when there's so much else that needs doin,' if what you're saying is right." His face split into a grin, and he tipped his head to knock playfully against Nikaio's shoulder. "You could tell your old man that you've fallen madly in love with me, and we'll run away together if I don't get to hang around."
Despite finding a great deal of amusement in that train of thought, in the next instant, his gaze was trailing after Nika's, to where Kan made his own perch.
"Oh." Right. A non-factor, Aki decided immediately. "Look here, pretty boy, don't you worry your messy curls about that. I'll talk to him if it pleases me, when it pleases me, and if he doesn't want to adventure across Tale, that don't bother me either way."
It would bother him, of course, and he likely would have to formulate some type of passable argument to convince Kan not to leave, whether it was sensible or not. Because if Aki stayed and Kan went, he might never see the other Wind boy again. Kan might forget him, or worse- Unacceptable. He gave another shrug. "But like I said, don't worry about it."
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Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 2:43 pm
Nika snorted and shook his head. “It’s only a couple of people. And they’re not too terribly hard to convince. But they won’t let a stranger join without talking to them first. You could be my long lost brother and they’d still want to speak with you.” Nikaio raised an eyebrow at that thought and decided that he didn’t really like imagining himself as Akiyal’s brother. He most definitely had already imagined him as something else. Though Nika wasn’t sure it’d be such a good idea to climb into the new guy’s bed just yet. Besides, he obviously had a friend — whether that friend was more or not, Nika would have to find out for himself in time (if the other boy decided to join them). “Mmm, whatever you decide, you’re welcome to stay at the camp for as long as we’re here. But if you want to join us, let me know as soon as you can so I can talk to my dad.” Nika paused a sa yawn took over and he stretched his arms over his head. The night was getting late and they’d had a busy day. “I’m not sure about you, but I’m beat.”
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 5:54 am
Tch, that did put a dampener on things... And it didn't seem like he was likely to be able to avoid speaking with any of the troupe's old leaders. With a disinterested hum, Akiyal's blue gaze swept across those seated around the fire. He didn't know who exactly he had to impress, but it was probably much too late to work any magic now. "Fine, fine," he sighed, waving a hand dismissively in Nika's direction. "I guess there ain't nothing to be done about it now." Maybe he'd feel more accepting in the morning.
He glanced back to Kan and the two other boys he was making friends with. Convince Kan. Inform Nika. Convince Nika's elders. All in a day's time. Surely that was manageable.
"You're on," Aki said with a grin. "Hey, I'll come find you in the morning, alright? And let you know how things played out. But until then, I guess you outta show me where you handle your sleeping business."
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