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News » Feast at Serpic-Moreal - 5B
Drunk Dwarves in
Feast of Serpic-Moreal
Chapter Five: Having a Lady in the Party
Part 2
...
Taking a bath in the small cave was difficult only because of modesty. The flow of water from an area of rock was enough to keep a sandy basin filled even as the liquid quickly seeped down through the grains. The dwarves however set up the poles and canvases for their tents to give some privacy to the wet area. Assuring that the lady had a pot of clean water, they began to disappear to the pool to bathe. She wondered about the small dark men as they each took some time, but noticed upon their return that their clothes were wet and each were brushing their beards. As Ninette served the men, she noticed that each only had their lengthy thick facial hair partially braided.
Morten looked at the lady as she handed him his plate, then said, "Don't ask why we do it, because we will simply ask you why you bother to look so nice."
"I have six men around me, one of which owns me, so I would dishonor him and displease him by not looking nice. Who are you looking good for?"
"Who said that I was looking good for somebody? I might simply want to look good, or I might simply be braiding my beard to keep the hair out of my way – and just happen to be a good-looking guy."
Ninette continues to learn about the men.
Drunk Dwarves in
Feast of Serpic-Moreal
Chapter Five: Having a Lady in the Party
Part 2
Ninette did have difficulty with the book, but not because she could not recognize the letters of the dwarven alphabet. Her problem was a basic difficulty with the language. She knew the basic vocabulary necessary for making transactions in a market, and quite a few words besides, but really had no grasp on how to make words connect. What made the book truly difficult for her to understand was that the language did not have a lot of what she considered basic sentence structure. She actually managed to read a few pages, although could not make out what was being said.
The dwarves started talking in their racial language. They previously would use the language, although mostly in comments to each other. They saved regular speech for the human tongue. They now went to completely using Dwarvish.
Scorplin showed his familiarity with the language in being able to respond. He however displayed some difficulty in voicing some syllables, and often fell into the human tongue as he had a problem working in the alternate style of thought necessary for Dwarvish. The dwarves thus worked with him even as they looked at Ninette to assure that she also paid attention to what they taught Scorplin.
The lady finally got up to start fixing the meal. As she worked, she tried to speak in Dwarvish. She knew the words for what she was preparing, as well as the steps she was taking, but still had difficulty in putting the words together in a sentence. The dwarves showed no reluctance to speak in their racial tongue however, and Scorplin quickly improved his ability with the language as if the continued work reawakened old memories. Ninette thus found that what she started as something to pass the time became a task at which she found a need to perfect.
Taking a bath in the small cave was difficult only because of modesty. The flow of water from an area of rock was enough to keep a sandy basin filled even as the liquid quickly seeped down through the grains. The dwarves however set up the poles and canvases for their tents to give some privacy to the wet area. Assuring that the lady had a pot of clean water, they began to disappear to the pool to bathe. She wondered about the small dark men as they each took some time, but noticed upon their return that their clothes were wet and each were brushing their beards. As Ninette served the men, she noticed that each only had their lengthy thick facial hair partially braided.
Morten looked at the lady as she handed him his plate, then said, "Don't ask why we do it, because we will simply ask you why you bother to look so nice."
"I have six men around me, one of which owns me, so I would dishonor him and displease him by not looking nice. Who are you looking good for?"
"Who said that I was looking good for somebody? I might simply want to look good, or I might simply be braiding my beard to keep the hair out of my way – and just happen to be a good-looking guy."
"Let me see, Edgeron is married. Borshik actually courted a lady, and Alchort plans to. Now Morten says that he should have no trouble gaining a lady. Turlell, if this mission is successful, I guess you will be married in a short time as well."
Morten replied, "Our kind is not as short-lived as humans, so we don't rush our courtships. Still, yes, we all have our hopes."
"Do you sing?" He only stared at the lady while putting some food in his mouth, so she elaborated. "I want a man who will sing for me. It need not be loud, or good, but I like to sing, and I don't want to marry someone that will not sing with me."
Borshik answered the question, "No, we don't sing. I have done patrols on the streets and heard humans crooning to their ladies. The sounds get quickly absorbed by the open air. Our homes are beneath the ground, and the sounds quickly come back at you to make a din. I made things for the lady I was courting, and presented them along with some poetry."
Scorplin said, "*Water clear, Rock grey, Here present, With me stay.*"
The faces of all five dwarves looked to the human man with a flash of anger at the simplistic poem in their language. Their faces however quickly showed rough smiles as they allowed that it had been spoken in jest. Borshik turned his eyes back to the lady to speak.
"Truthfully, my poetry wasn't much better than that."
Ninette sweetly replied, "But she liked it."
"I wasn't trying to please her with my poetry. I can take the proper type of sand and make lovely objects from glass. I was thinking about trying my skill with this sand after my belly was full. The only problem is that I will have to make the fire hot and we have suffered enough from heat already."
"What would you make?"
"It depends on the color and texture of the glass. If it is a fine smooth glaze then I will do flowers. If it is rough and grainy, I will do animals."
"Flowers?"
"Beskerrin did not make us for sterile tunnels. There were things living beneath the ground even in the days of chaos, but they were turning corrupt due to stagnation setting in. My kind was made to keep the ground active and thriving, and good. We have flowers, and I am not talking about mushrooms, although there are some pretty ones of those as well that grow beneath the soil."
"I never meant to imply that there weren't, Sarge. Still, once we get out of this desert I will make it a point to speak to you of the flowers we see."
"Only under one condition, Ninette. Once we get back to our home, which will happen since Scorplin owns you, you spend some time with me and let me show you our flowers."
"Whether Scorplin owns me or not, I am interested in spending a day with a man who will talk with me about flowers."
After food was eaten, Borshik used some rocks to compress the material for the fire, then worked to have the embers release even more of the internal flame. Under his attention, the fire became so hot as to radiate even more heat although confined to a smaller area. He then pulled a rod of some silvery material out of one of his packs that had one end formed into a cup. After filling the indention with some sand, he placed the end with the grains into the fire.
The heat was rather intense, but those bothered by the temperature quietly moved closer to the mouth of the cave where the night air was rather chilly. Ninette finished taking care of the items she used in preparing the food, then went to spend her own time bathing. As she returned from the water tending to her own locks, she saw Borshik nod to her after looking at the results of the fire upon the sand. He brought some more tools from his packs, then used some thick pieces of cloth to enable him to lift the metal rod from the fire.
Borshik did not blow into the syrupy substance that the bowl of the rod now contained, but used a tool to lift globs. With quick experienced strokes he put the globs on a small square of silvery metal and worked them into shape. Ninette did not watch the piece of artwork take shape, but merely watched in wonder as the small hands worked the rapidly cooling glass. Setting the metal plate near the fire, Borshik let the lady know that he was finished.
"It is for you, dear lady. It is something to remember your promise to me. I am going to make sure that it cools properly before allowing you to take it."
Ninette moved close to the fire to see her gift. Her eyes turned from the artwork to Borshik with an expression mixed with horror and wonder. The glass figure was not a delicate structure that could easily break during the travel. The form of a unicorn laying its head in the lap of a damsel still could be clearly seen. Borshik held his gaze as the lady's voice clearly had a tone of anger.
"What have you already learned about me?"
The dwarf leader held his countenance and voice calm as he replied, "I thought it to be a cute subject."
"My father worshipped Honesty. He constantly lectured to me of this method of subduing and killing unicorns as being evil and wrong."
"We don't have unicorns we are from. I mean, we dwarves live underground, but even the humans do not speak of them as being in the area. This method of trapping them is talked about, although most speak of it as being the only way to see the animals."
"We have unicorns, and many seek the animals as their horns help identify and negate poisons. Most families have it as an act of a young lady truly becoming a woman by having her take part in killing a unicorn. My father was very much against it."
Borshik moved his hand to the metal plate as he said, "Well, we can return this piece to the fire."
"NO! I mean, I don't like my father. I will keep it."
The thick hairs growing over the man's eyes almost completely hid the orbs as he asked, "What did your father do to you?"
"Nothing, although I believe raising me in a false belief of how our world operates to be a major crime. There is no Honesty. The gods are real. I probably should have become a worshipper of Beskerrin, as Hoduyyal helped me see the truth. There was no church to Beskerrin nearby however, only one to Thaenir. My armor however has the symbols of both Thaenir and Beskerrin worked into it."
Borshik looked to the lady strangely, then loudly said, "Scorplin, let me see this lady's armor." As the man moved to get a large leather bundle and untie it, the dwarf leader spoke to the lady. "Both Scorplin and I looked at your armor. It was ornate, but we did not recognize the artwork."
"The symbols are intertwined. The priests to Thaenir blessed the armor saying that the goddess had no argument with Beskerrin, and that it showed my own wavering nature."
The men began passing pieces of the armor between themselves. They studied the details again thinking they were lovely but nothing clearly being represented. Ninette tried to show the flow of the design, although to discern some features demanded the lady place the pieces upon her body. Borshik and Scorplin finally ended up giving the lady the pieces and telling her to put them on.
All the men stood in awe when Ninette stepped back into their midst and finished donning the protective garment by placing the helmet on her head. The suit itself had little in fashion with female attire, although the flow of the metal over her body clearly declared her feminine nature. Instead of the dance of a dress around her legs, elaborate detail in the greaves and cuisse moved one's eyes up to the body of the lady. Patterns that had not been noticeable before now became evident with Alchort stating a fact.
"That armor was truly designed by a master craftsman. What did you have to do to earn it?"
The voice that came from the helmet was clearly that of Ninette, but a timbre now sounded that gave the feminine tones more clarity and strength. "Hoduyyal is a very good man. I met him when I was young and chasing butterflies. He was sitting on a rock near the lake next to his home and studying the scales of a fish that he caught. I asked him about eating the fish, and he mentioned that he had devoted the fish to Beskerrin. That took me by surprise, as I was so young that the only words I knew were those from my parents. I spent enough time that day working with Hoduyyal that I got my parents mad at me, although Hoduyyal became mad at my parents as well for raising me with such false beliefs. I continued to sneak away to work with Hoduyyal as I grew, and we became good friends. When I came to him crying about a man, another witch of my father's coven that was supposed to become my husband, Hoduyyal began work on this armor saying that he would put me on the path to another life. So far I am not pleased with this path, but I believe that each of you are good."
Morten said, "I agree with something being said between you and Scorplin. He did not purchase your armor, but truly purchased you."
Ninette took off the helmet before saying, "But Thaenir did not accept me, and I failed at defeating Serpic-Moreal."
Alchort said, "We all heard Thaenir speak to you. Whatever your standing before her, it is not that of someone rejected. As for Serpic-Moreal, maybe – Sarge, we need her going with us."
Borshik turned to Scorplin to say, "I agree."
The man replied, "Hold it. My agreement with Ninette is that I have to pay her a silver petal a day in such a situation."
"If you don't believe her presence is worth it, charge me. To me it will be worth it just to see her wearing this armor."
Scorplin moved up to take the helmet from the lady as he said, "I told you that I expected you to do something to quickly earn the money you owe me."
Ninette turned to again move behind the canvas she said, "A silver petal is not that much."
"Say what you want, but I am glad that I bought you. I will feel bad when the debt is paid and you leave me."
She turned to smile at him as she replied, "That is what I wanted to hear from you yesterday."
"My wife still deserves her respect, Ninette, and you – well, I believe the future holds something else than a life with me."
"Not for the present, Master. Oh, and before I go into combat, I need it put on better than I have it right now. I will need you to help me tighten certain straps and laces."
"I enjoyed spending time with my girls, Ninette, and I do enjoy spending time with you. If you need my help, I will gladly do what I can."
"I am not a girl, Master."
"As far as I am concerned, you are."
"Then I have more work to do with you."
"I said a year, Ninette, and because my wife deserves it I will not shorten that time by even one day."
"Okay, Master. We can talk some more later."
The travel resumes with the next installment.
Posted by TerishD on Friday, April 25, 2008 (11:17:14) (557 reads)
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