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 Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 8:13 am
There had been a lot of work to do today, and it had been too windy to go and work outside. As such, Alexisk had been being a total pest since lunchtime. She couldn't help it - she was bored and full of energy - and though she tried to restrain herself, she could only behave for a few minutes before she started playing with her foodbowl or poking her nose into his work. This of course meant that he got annoyed and snapped at her, not hard enough to make her sad for days, just enough to make her flop down in them middle of the floor keening for a few minutes. After that, she was back to being a pain.
Now however he had finished all of his current orders and the wind had dropped, leaving room for a pleasant evening. A nice trip out, and a wonderful one to Alexisk. As she had wanted to get to the fields belonging to one of his friends fast - they would have harvested their tubers from that particular field today, and had said that Alexisk could play in it now she liked - Alexius had fetched out her riding harnesses.
Some minutes later they were almost there. She was not the most comfortable beast to ride, Alexius considered as he held onto the harness with grim determination, but practicality and comfort didn't always go together. Neither did practicality and looking dignified; his feet practically touched the ground! Still, nearly there now, and then Ali could charge around and wear herself out while he worked on a bit of embroidery. Gehnza was too practical for there to be much demand for the skill, but his father had taught him that it kept the eye in and taught patience. It certainly did, and in addition the finished products made lovely presents. Everyone, no matter how practical minded they were, liked a bit of beauty in their home.
"Nearly there!" Alexisk cried joyously as the field she was allowed to play in came into view. "This is going to be loads of fun! Did you bring the bit of rope to throw for me?" She liked playing fetch; it was so satisfying when you managed to catch it out of thin air! Lex got bored of the game quickly though, she had to remember only to ask him to throw for her a couple of times in a row. In between, she could dig holes so long as she filled them in again and pretend to hut wherries!
"Yes Ali," Alexius sent with a mental sigh, though his tones were fond, "I brought the rope."
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Posted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 12:19 pm
Pain.
It was something that he had little experience with, physical pain at any rate; he'd had the same angst as any other boy who felt he wasn't quite what the world wanted him to be, who felt that he didn't fit in... Well that was probably a lie; not fitting in seemed to trouble most people more than it troubled him. He felt it was something that ought to bother him though, bother him more than it did anyway. He got lonely, yes, but there were always more books to read, and the quiet companionship of other readers at the library kept the feeling of isolation from being too sharp.
It had until he'd left in any case; here at Ghenza there was little time to do anything other than your job, and he was too much of an outsider to be allowed into their repositories of knowledge. That left him feeling loneliness more than he was accustomed to, and then there was the physical pain.
Ow.
It was like a fire running along his arms and down his back; even his neck was stiff. Heaving tubers out of the ground since first light with only a short stop for lunch had left him a wreck at the end of the day. He'd tried to hide it, but on the trek back to the house comments to the effect of 'lazy weak outsiders' had been made. After eating his dinner, he had left the house and come back out to the field. At least here he was alone by himself as opposed to alone and surrounded by people who just wished he would disappear.
Sighing to himself, Fealty shifted into a slightly different position before leaning back against the fence again and taking a sip from the small skin of wine the farmcrafters had given him. While they might not like him, at least they were not inhumane. He would get through this, somehow or other. He would have to. He would not be beaten by a load of vegetables, no matter how hard they were to pull up... Tomorrow would be harder than today. Shells. How was he going to do this?
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