Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was one of those rare times when he was allowed to leave the manor to accompany Lady Myranda to the marketplace. This was a real treat. Usually, the Lady herself stayed to her household, and sent her servants out to do shopping. But today there was a famous textile market set up in the city. Apparently, this happened only every year, and the Lady was very excited to go see it for herself. With so many rare and exotic fabrics on offer, she didn’t quite trust her servants to pick out the cream of the crop.

Buthos was away on business in Orrod, so Bahari had pressed his luck and begged Myranda to let him to with her.

“I’ll be very good and super quiet.” He had promised. “And I’ll help the servants carry your bags when you buy things. And I won’t ask for anything.”

She relented and let him come along. He wasn’t sure if it was because of his promises, or simply because she figured that he would at the very least be able to entertain her on the carriage ride over. Buthos’ manor was on the outskirts of Sulburi proper, and it took a while to travel through the fray into the heart of the city. Which, of course, was exactly what the hybrid was looking forward to. Seeing fabrics from all over Tendaji certainly did hold some interest for him, but nowhere near as much pleasure as he’d get from simply seeing the world out of the carriage windows.

“Lady Buthos! Look at that, look at the janarim!” He pointed excitedly, perched right up against the window and pointing to several of the armoured beasts. There were three of them, each one in it’s own paddock. “Don’t you think critters that big and strong will be able to bust right through fences like those?”

“Yes, perhaps.” Lady Myranda explained, ever-patient but always quick to correct him. “You see, they must be well-trained. If they respect their keeper, and trust that they will be well-fed and looked after, they won’t run away. But don’t point like that, Bahari. It’s just as rude outdoors as it is in the house… maybe even ruder.”

“Sorry.” Bahari grinned sheepishly, putting his finger down. He was always getting in trouble for that one, always being excited to point out something so that he could ask questions about it or gush out with all the details he already knew. For the rest of the ride he did his best not to point, but ended up doing twice as much eager “Look! Look! Look there” to make up for it. But then the carriage stopped at the formal entrance to the marketplace, and Bahari found so much to look at that he couldn’t even think to point.

Alongside with her little hybrid, Myranda had brought two servants -- both stout and sensible Oban girls who knew how to keep an eye out for thieves and scammers. They lead the Lady into the marketplace and they all started a circuit of the finest stalls. Bahari was more than happy to trail along, holding on to one of the servants’ hands… although he quickly lost interest in the details of fabric-shopping. He would touch the softest and the shiniest bolts, then turn away to watch the crowd instead.

This was how he came to notice the old man standing on an upturned crate, holding out a shiny piece of metal. A few people stood around him, some with their arms folded and an impressed look on their face, some looking absolutely fascinated. Bahari tugged on the servant’s hand, and she, being somewhat distracted by the stall-keepers’ insistence on bringing down more and more bolts for them to look at, let go.

Bahari looked cautiously to make sure he wouldn’t get lost, and skipped across the aisle to see what the funny old man was up to.

When Bahari joined the small crowd, he was finally able to hear the strange man’s words. “Believe me, this is no regular metal trinket. Nothing like this can be made today! It is from an ancient civilization, and the skills for making and engraving metal like this was lost with them. See how strange it looks? See this colour?”

Bahari dutifully looked at the metal piece. It was flat and slightly curved, with some inscribed writing on it. He was a pretty good reader, but he wasn’t able to pick out what this one said. In any case, he was quite enthralled in the old man’s claim. An ancient treasure? That was so exciting! He hadn’t ever thought about that -- most of the history books in the library were about fairly recent events, things that some people remembered and had been around for. Wars between the nations, discoveries of lands like Yael, all of that. To think that there was an even deeper past beyond was quite exciting.

“Bahari!” One of the servant girls came up to snatch his hand. “Don’t sneak off like that!”

“Sorry!” He mumbled, following her back to Myranda (who seemed not to have noticed his sneaking away, still bent over a bolt of shining gold-brown cloth). But his interest was definitely piqued by this encounter.

words = 874