At first, he barely wanted to do anything besides lying on the beach, watching the sky and running in the sand with no one to bother him. That was why he had come all the way out here, after all. To relax, to be quiet for once, to go a span of time without having to talk his mouth off like he was apt to. And yeah, sure, it wasn’t as if people were making him talk his mouth off -- he did all that on his own accord. But regardless of who made who do what, he enjoyed the time off.

A boy did get bored, though.

He got drunk a few times, at beach-side bars where you could drink with the sand still between your toes, the evening breeze pushing your hair around and making you shiver. Sometimes he found people to talk to -- whenever he happened upon the sorts of folks he liked, that is, confident and bold folks with good stories to tell -- and they would sit around a while, maybe get up at some point and walk across the beach, maybe find somewhere to bed down for the night (sometimes apart, sometimes together). Other times, he’d sit alone a while, and enjoy yet more of that silence. Life was good here.

Or, well, it was good while you had money.

Ouen had never coveted anything like that. He’d taken his share from raids with Talin, yeah… but that was just a chime in his pocket and nothing more. He’d barely even ever counted his coins back then. It didn’t really matter. It still didn’t matter, except it did, because he sure as hell wasn’t making any more money… and he was drinking it away, cup-by-cup. So it got to the point eventually where that jingle in his pocket had gone right silent, and he was faced with the fact that he didn’t even have anything to buy a meal with, let alone another drink. Problematic, that.

Actually, this wasn’t anything he was used to, not in the slightest. In Jauhar, he’d barely ever bought any food -- but he’d known that jungle like the back of his hand. He knew where to find food, and hell, it hardly took any effort. All he’d have to do was shimmy up a tree-trunk and split open some fruit-husks, maybe spear a couple bugs if he was in the mood for something hearty. But in Matori? Things were more complicated. The main foodstuff seemed to be fish, and as much as he was starting to like it, getting it seemed… well, a heck of a lot more time-consuming. Those little silver buggers just kept swimming around! But he remembered Mano then, with his trident, and figured maybe he’d do ok with a lance if he gave it some effort.

So that was how he got to be perched out on a rock, watching the fish swim by in the shallows beneath. He’d noticed a local fisher sitting in a similar manner a while back, so he figured this was a good enough place to try and catch something… if you had the eye for it.

He certainly didn’t, not yet, so it took a good few hours before he actually finally speared something -- a small, skinny thing that looked like it would do more use as bait than dinner, but something. He stabbed it with a stick and grilled it over a fire, and resolved to find something more filling the next day.

* * *

He wasn’t exactly a master fisherman, but he was… doing better, admittedly. And for someone who’d never done it before, he thought he’d done pretty well. Not only had he eaten, he’d also caught enough fish to maybe trade for something… so, with his catch gathered up in a flexible reed satchel (in the local style), he finally headed off to one of the larger settlements, where a market day was in full swing. He wasn’t going to be the only person selling fish, not by a long shot, but given that everyone in this land ate the stuff, he couldn't do too badly, could he? Still, he wandered around a bit and scoped the place out, watching what the locals did and eyeing the goods on offer.

He’d wanted to buy some drink first, or maybe something to eat that wasn’t fish -- but what caught his eye first was neither. What really got his attention was a rather silly trinket, all things considering… but it reminded him of someone.

It was a necklace of fine red coral beads, with a yellow-gold shell set as a center pendant. It was… neither too simple not too fancy, and coloured in such a way that it made him think immediately of Kalliope -- the Oban girl who had, for whatever reason, chosen to stay loyal to him even though he first met her as a captive, as nothing but loot or random-fodder of Talin. They had grown somewhat… close since then, he had to admit, but he didn’t quite understand why she didn’t just go back to her family. What did he have to offer her, really, a so-called leader of a ragtag crew who… weren’t bandits, and weren’t quite upright model citizens either?

Not much, all in all. But he offered the stall-keeper his fish for the necklace, and after a bit of back-and-forth the small trinket was his. He bundled it up and tucked it away into his satchel.

If Kalliope was still waiting for him in Jauhar when he returned, it would be hers. And if she wasn’t… well, he wouldn’t blame her.

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