Miry squeaked, melting back into Zakroti’s arms and twining her arm around his, hugging his close to her. After a moment, she rested her speaking screen across her lap, pinning it under their interlaced hands and freeing her other side. She closed her eyes for most of the journey, finding it better to trust his arms than her eyes for balance.

She might have fallen asleep; honestly, she wasn’t entirely sure. But as the column drew to a halt, she cracked her eyes open again, squinting faintly against the sun. Zak practically had to lift her out of the saddle, and even then she stumbled against his side, legs tingling as she regained feeling she didn’t even know she’d lost. 

The men-at-arms were quick to busy themselves with assembling a meal of some sort; a stew made from things both foraged and brought from the holdings. Miry, having set her speaking screen down somewhere safe, hovered anxiously behind the  busy men, unsure how to help but feeling like she should. 

For the most part, the soldiers ignored her, bustling about their business and quickly preparing the meal. It wasn’t long before Zakroti beckoned her and Nenra to the campfire.

Nenra wandered off the moment they made their camp, eyes scanning the vegetation and dirt. She mentally compared the plants here - overwhelmingly, they were small, close-to-the ground mosses and succulents, with the occasional scrub or shrubbery- to the ones at home. Her home had been farmland, lush plains and woodland that even tended slightly to swampland, but up in the hills a day’s ride away there were similar bits of scrub and bitter ground herbs used for a variety of medicinal applications. 

These plants all looked similar enough, but she knew that never meant anything here. She shook herself out of her sudden dark thoughts as Zak called her name, and she plastered a pretty smile on her face as she rejoined the group. 

Miry perched on a stone, hesitantly poking at the stew with the supplied eating utensils. It smelled spicy and savory, much bolder than most of the cuisine they’d ever had at home. She wasn’t quite sure of what the meat was, but it was dense and tough, and even the vegetables and mushrooms seemed denser than they were at home. She tentatively stabbed a piece of mushroom and nibbled on it uncertainly, wrinkling her nose as her palette flooded with spicy, vaguely tart flavors from even just that one bite. 

Nenra snorted at Zakroti’s comment, shaking her head. She had shoved a scoop of the stew in her mouth with little regard for decorum or manners, and chewed quickly, mumbling around her food, “well of course we did, that’s all they fed us at -“ she trailed off. “The place. Shadow somethin’. I don’t care what they call it, but, that place they had us all for ‘training.’ Not that it did much of any good.” As if to emphasize her point, she wiped her hands on her trousers and took another big bite of stew, flinching at the cast of unfamiliar flavors but chewing resolutely. 

[i]’Vinokh,’[/i] Miry signed, holding her bowl in her lap as she spelled out each individual letter, stretched out to resemble the multitude of spires of the Drakkan border fortress. It was the proper name of it in the old imperial tongue, though seldom used now outside of academic circles. She’d read all about it in her childhood, of course, and so that was the name that came first to mind. As Zak mentioned trade, she perked up, eyes brightening. She could talk trade. [i]’Trade across the mountain is worse than you imagine, I think,’[/i] she started signing, the idea coming faster and words blurring together around the edges. [i]‘the easterners have little interest in exchange anymore, not since-‘[/i] she bounced her legs a little bit, as she did when she was excited, and nearly dropped her bowl of stew.

She panicked and caught the bowl, barely, and coughed lightly with embarrassment as she adjusted its position in her lap. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Nenra’s gaze sliding dismissively past her, and several of the guards looking at her blankly. 

Oh. 

Right.

She’d done the thing again.

She set the bowl aside entirely, blinking away sudden tears, eyes fixating on the rocks at her feet. A thought crossed her mind, for about the fifth time that day, meandering in among words and stories half written and this time refusing to be shooed off. Zakroti had noticed when she’d called the - she mentally skipped over the name again. Ganaut? - whatever it was, he’d noticed and acknowledged that she’d called it a dragon. Her cheeks reddened slightly in embarrassment of her conduct. But even that didn’t unhitch the wagon of her thoughts.

He’d been so respectful of her ...needs, previously; he’d barely even hesitated when she showed him the speaking-screen and drawn water through it to make the shapes of words at the selection gala, and he’d been quick to adapt to using questions and comments that could be answered with only nods or vague gestures, but she’d not tried to sign to him directly before.

Spire Court sign was relatively unused, even in Gemmenia - most of the noble seats had their own dialects, variations on the visual language (though they were all similar enough to be at least vaguely understood!) and theirs was among the most archaic of them. It had been a surprise and a half that Nenra and Kazia had both known some form of hand-sign, at least well enough to hold a simple conversation, but Zakroti? She was certain that any sort of training they sent the lords to, if there even was one (and she was sure it was a laughable idea) didn’t include a primer on Gemmenian visual languages.

She tried to catch his eye, turning to regard him and staring at the point of his chin to give the illusion of meeting his eyes. [i]’How did you learn our handsign?’[/i] she shaped the words slowly and excessively precisely, out of habits formed interacting with those unfamiliar, and prayed he’d understand.

Nenra started to speak up to translate, talking around yet another face full of stew, but Miry shot her a look. This was important, and she had to speak for herself on it.