Blackfridayrule

The Tree of Astra (LadyAnnaLee and Blackfridayrule)

Ridahne looked at her briefly as she re-dipped the needle into the black ink. "You're wondering if...this," she gestured between the two of them, "Will go on my ojih someday, aren't you?" She gave a short, dry laugh that could only be described as casual. "I wouldn't, by the way. We don't have such a mark anyway. But... assuming all goes well and we succeed and I make it back home, I would get another mark to partner with this one..." she pointed to one that seemed a little crisper than the rest on her face, more recent. It was between her brows and on the bridge of her nose, a kind of curved, three pointed mark in solid black. "That would be a 'redemption' mark, of sorts. To show that I proved myself worthy. But the thing about black ink, you can't cover over it. Ever. Blue and white, yes, but not black. What I've done will be on display until I die and the Keeper judges me. Like the act that earned it, I cannot take it back or erase it. It just is. Always. It makes going home....complicated. Even after all this." She gave Darin a sad smile.

Ridahne had been truthful when she once said that she had nothing left. Nothing but a thin hope. To her people, she was worse than dead, she was dishonored. Her future, ruined. What did she have left but this quest? But this one chance to prove to no one but herself that she had some worth? She would see it done. No matter the cost.

She cringed and gave Darin an awkward noise of discomfort, though she didn't immediately shake off the question. She racked her brain for something to give her and yet she wasn't sure what she ought to. Those that did not take the ojih were not supposed to know its secrets. "Errmm..." Another cringe. "I don't know how uh...to answer that. The question is...it's not...it's not rude. rude isn't the word. But it's like asking...ah..." she shook her head, unable to find a comparison. "But..I can tell you it would be...simple. And I can also tell you that you would have a mark like this..." she traced a black line from her ear, down her jawline and almost to her chin; it had other lines and branches from it but was essentially an ornamented, unbroken line. On hers, it was the most faded of all her tattoos. "It is...everyone who takes the ojih has one. And it is styled to suit you. And your first one is never done by your own hand--always by a master tattooer. It's tradition. is that...um...sat-is-fact-or-y?" she said the word slowly and clearly--obviously it was not one she used often and still felt foreign on her tongue.

Ridahne smiled a little, looking mischievous. "Okay, you asked an awkward question. My turn. you don't have to answer though. Before your father left you...who did you want to be? What did you want to do? Did you know?"

The Tree of Astra (LadyAnnaLee and Blackfridayrule)

He destroyed her.

Ridahne actually looked up from her tattooing, all the casual joviality sucked from her face. Her first reaction was to condemn this man for leaving his family, for just discarding his partner so flippantly. And then a horrible, crushing thought came to her: Was that what she'd done to Ajoran? It was different because she didn't just disappear--he knew exactly what happened and where she had gone. But in their final moments together, she had renounced him all the same. Decades of courtship and she had callously pushed him away. But it was for his own good. He would be better without her. He needed someone who would not drag him down, someone who could support him in his ambitions instead of cause him trouble. Someone he could wake up to and be proud of.

"I don't understand, Ridahne...you could be pardoned if all goes well. Pardoned. I would wait, you know."
"I know you would. That's the problem. If a leg goes septic you must cut it away to save the body. Don't, and the body dies. You must cut me away, Ajoran." She took off the necklace she wore--a carnelian spiral carved by Ajoran himself--and pushed it into his hands. Worn as a pendant, it was something like a sign of betrothal except not so formal, and once married she was to wear it in her ear in place of the bone one she'd worn since childhood. "I can't keep this, Ajoran."
He would not take it. "Did you not hear me? I said I'd wait for you to do this task, Ridahne. To come back and be pardoned. You can come home and I can keep my position."
"Ajoran, no, I--"
"All these years..." he said, an edge creeping into his tone. Ridahne cringed at the hurt she felt in that tone. "Did they mean nothing to you that you can just--"

Ridahne burst, slapping his chest with an open palm. "It means the world!" she shouted. "And that's why I can't let you waste your life away waiting for me to 'redeem' myself." Tears streaked her inked face. "When I come back, IF I come back, I will be allowed to live but nothing will undo what I've done. Nothing. You can't change that and it's a weight around your neck you don't need."
"I don't care about that, Ridahne."
Her voice grew cold, but her eyes still flowed with tears. "You should. Take it." She tried to push the carved stone into his hand again but he pulled way.
"No." His voice was also cold, defeated. Wounded. "Keep it, even if you never wear it. It was made for you. It wouldn't be right to give it to someone else."

---

She still had it. She wore it around her neck still--mostly for safekeeping--but she did not often let it show if she could help it. Like her past, it was complicated. Ridahne shook her head slightly, obviously trying to ward off a train of thought, and went back to her inking. "Well, if you DO find him, I will hold him down." She offered a weak smile.

In regards to Darin's question about tattoos, Ridahne shook her head. "All of them? No. Some are just...art. Many are ones I got during significant points in my life but the designs mean nothing in particular. This one is one of those." Tap tap tap. She was quick and confident with the little bone needle, her hands steady and practiced despite the pain. "The face ones, they are called ojih, and they do mean something. All of those ones do. There are some things in life that are significant enough to define who you are, and those things get put into the ojih. Good things, bad things--doesn't matter. The symbols are universal to a degree, enough that to someone who knows what they're looking at, they can be read. A stranger can look at me and know I am a Torzinei and I am from Atakhara just by looking at this," she tapped the large bone earring dangling from her stretched right earlobe, which was carved on the flat face that hung down. "That isn't part of the ojih, not really, but it sort of is in a way. The ojih could show though if I..." she considered, trying to give general examples instead of more specific, personal ones. "Was wed or not. Or my profession or status I've achieved. It would show great achievements maybe, or rank or...well..." she shrugged. "Crimes."

The Tree of Astra (LadyAnnaLee and Blackfridayrule)

Ridahne shrugged, though she didn't look up from her work. The skin was smudged black with streaks of red from small beads of blood but even through the ink her dark skin was reddened and puffy. It didn't seem to bother her much--after getting her ojih, a calf tattoo was nothing. She still thought the ribs were horrible though, especially for her since she was thin and didn't have much in the way of 'padding'.

"I don't know...what did you farm? Tell me about your mother. Or about humans in general? Do you have special holidays and festivals you celebrate? I might be ancient by your standards but I have not left Azurei much. Some, but not much. I know little about humans and their ways."

Mitaja gave a contented sigh and her huge paws kneaded the ground, claws leaving rents in the dirt as she did so. It was for Mark and his team that Mitaja had not been involved; she was as much of a warrior as Ridahne was, though she required no blades and no training. She had keen senses, speed, and very large teeth to aid her, and she was fiercely loyal to her handler.

Ridahne frowned, considering. She had never seen a green tattoo before, though she had seen red before yesterday. Some of the Orosi occasionally used red ink in their ornamental tattoos (they did not have ojih like Azurei did), though they mostly used black. "I don't know how you would get green ink. I guess it is possible...and red I think you could mix with white but I don't know how that would actually turn out on your skin. Especially not mine. But we don't do that in Azurei. We use black, blue, and white. It's...just what is done. Those are the colors of Azurei, and we are proud of them. I guess I could get a red tattoo somewhere on my body and it wouldn't be wrong or anything, but definitely not on my ojih." She pointed to her face. "Those must be black, white and blue, and which color you use for which mark matters."

In Dark Seas We Sail

Berlin was eternally grateful for the way the conversation was progressing. In a way, he'd forgotten what it was like to meet a vokurian for the first time, forgotten just how frightening it actually was to see one up close and see what they could do. He'd been determined when he brought Rohaan on, and that helped him push through, but seeing Hana's small admission of worry about being eaten made him remember what it was like. Part of him wished he had prepared her a little more for the whole experience. Still, that hesitation served to bring the two understanding, as Rohaan was very sympathetic to fear and it rarely occurred to him that people could be afraid of him as he was of them. That realization humanized her in the lad's mind, Berlin thought.

It would be nice not to have to worry about those two. Berlin had enough on his mind. Not to mention, his mind was reeling with the kinds of things they could accomplish together like she and Uban had. But all that satisfaction and relief bled away like warmth in a winter storm when Hana mentioned a bath. Pieter actively spat out his drink--Berlin might have too, if he was drinking something--and a silence fell upon them like night. Berlin broke it with a whispered, "Damn..."

Rohaan's smile was wiped immediately clean and he looked at her with a distrustful eye as though they had not just shaken hands. He rolled his shoulders a little, weighing how worthwhile it would be to agree. It wasn't that he hated being clean, nor did he necessarily hate water or being in a bath. In fact, he enjoyed them when they were either warm, or in the summer if they were cool. But he did NOT like soap. Growing up, his village bathed in the ocean and scrubbed themselves with fine sand, then rinsed the saltwater off from rain barrels. He never minded doing that and would do it semi-regularly if they were in warm enough waters. But he did not like being cold and he hated the way that soap got in his eyes, the way that the slimy substance clung to his skin. And sometimes it smelled funny.

And then there was his hair. It hadn't been cut since he'd left home two years ago and that was fine with him--he could tie it back like Berlin and Uban did with theirs if he wanted to. But his curls were irregular and wild, ranging from loose waves to tight spirals, and trying to keep it untangled was a hopeless endeavor. So it just got more tangled. And if she thought he was going to let her pull out his hair with a stupid comb, she had another thing coming.

But he looked at her, calculating, and with his eyes slightly narrowed he said slowly, "okay. Fine."
Berlin shook his head; that was FAR too easy. "Rheoaan Rohaan Rio Ja'aisen, you look me in the eye. That's an order, lad." The boy complied. "Don't you dare test her, do you hear me? Draw blood like you did with Uban and I WILL hang you by your ankle and send you up the mast like a damn flag, got it?" Rohaan just sort of grumbled, but Berlin reached out and grabbed the boy's wrist with a very firm grip. He didn't use his ability, as he'd made promises to the lad about use of force, but he simply held it, and Berlin the Bear towered over him. "The answer I'm looking for is aye Captain..."
Rohaan glowered at him. "It's coooold..."
"Deal with it. I quite agree--it's high time you had one and I'll stand by her on this. So you'll do it. Without trouble."

Rohaan grumbled and tried to pull his arm away, but Berlin's grip was iron. "Still waiting, sailor..."
Another grumble, then a very reluctant, "Aye Ca-mm..." Berlin let him go and the lad stalked off to find the accursed soap and a scrub brush, muttering in vokurian all the way.

Berlin looked to Hana. "You've got a hefty set on you, I tell you what. He'll do most of it on his own if you shout at him enough and make him do it proper. But ain't nobody on this ship gonna save you if you come at him with a comb. You're authorized to use force, if necessary."

Rohaan, still glowering, brought the stupid nasty soap and the brush to the aft deck where most of the rain barrels were kept. Unlike everyone else, he was small enough to actually fit into a barrel, so he selected one that was a little more than half full. The lad tossed off his clothes without much of a care (he had zero qualms with nudity and failed to see why anyone else did) though he was very unhappy about the cool autumn breeze and shivered. The round pink scar from his recent encounter with a rifle stood out from his suntanned skin, as did a white line across his side where someone had swung at him with a knife. One of his ribs, too, looked like it had once been broken and never properly set back into place so it sat awkwardly under the skin. The lad slithered into the barrel and shivered, scowling powerfully.

--

"Oh, rude," Uban said with mock indignation, though the light in his eyes showed he really wasn't bothered by Wheel's remark about his past. Like he'd told Hana, he had a lot of time to think on that mistake, time to curse fate and hate himself and feel guilt and anger and eventually acceptance. He'd come to terms with that a long time ago and no one would use it against him again. "You just wait, I have some more ideas I want to try. Speaking of, you wanna spar a little with some knives?" Uban had a mischievous look in his eye. There was indeed something he wanted to try, but he wasn't about to do it on anyone but Wheel.

He shoved some dried meat in his mouth and chewed. Something about his expression darkened at the remark about the turtle. He gave a decidedly nervous smile and shook his head. "Uh, no...I don't think so. Not one of those. They're like...the size of a galleon, Wheel. That thing could have eaten the Borealis if it wanted to." He shivered visibly. "A grenado would just piss it off horribly." He thought of the way it came up to him, whispering in his ear...

What exactly had it said, anyway? He never really did think much on it, though he remembered it with perfect clarity. Maybe he'd write it down...or ask Hana to help him. He was more literate than Rohaan, but not by much. He'd have to think about it some more, he thought as he rejoined the rest of the crew topside while balancing the mug on his plate with a shaking hand. It wasn't the ship's lurching that made his hold unsteady, just his own body. The mug rattled lightly as he perched on a barrel, noting a tension in the air. He looked to Pieter. "Geez. Who died?" He asked through a mouthful.

The Tree of Astra (LadyAnnaLee and Blackfridayrule)

Ridahne smiled, satisfied. "Good." She intended to teach Darin everything she knew, but she wasn't sure what her experience was. She really had no idea what farming was like, as she was from a fishing village and also the desert. Farming did happen in Azurei, but not in her region. Atakhara was right between the sea and the Dust Sea, as if the beach just extended on inland for eternity. Fertile land was not something she was used to.

While Darin built the fire (quite well, Ridahne had to note) Ridahne set out a waxed leather bowl-like container to catch rainwater and brought in her saddle and its bags so it didn't get soaked. She set it down and, with the roar of rain building outside and the fire blazing heartily, she took out a little wooden box with ornate carvings and paint. Inside was a set of differently shaped bone needles--too large for sewing--a container of the fragrant balm she'd put on Darin's shoulder, and three smaller containers with blue, white, and black contents. Her tattoo kit and her blades were the most prized things she owned and she kept good care of both. Ridahne pulled up the leg of one of her trousers to expose an unfinished tattoo in black ink. She rinsed it in water, then dipped a fine bone needle into the black ink and began to rhythmically poke the tip into her skin, stopping every few pricks to dip it back into the ink.

"Well..." she said with a resigned sigh, "I guess we'll be here a while then. Want a tattoo?" The little smirk on her face said she was joking...or at least mostly. She wasn't about to just slap one on her right there and then--it was something that had to be considered and thought about first. Her hands were steady and practiced--she had decades of experience tattooing. Mitaja, also keen to stay out of the rain, curled up behind Darin but with her large head still in reach of Ridahne's hand.

"We have a practice in Azurei when you meet someone new that you are trying to get to know. It's not a revolutionary concept but I like it. You tell me something about yourself and in turn you get to ask a question about me. Yes?"

The Tree of Astra (LadyAnnaLee and Blackfridayrule)

Ridahne smiled. "Humans seem to think 103 is a lot, yes. But by our standards I am young. The Sota Sol is 435 years old, and there was a woman in my village who was 581. A healthy elf can live to about 600. We're not immortal like some people like to think, but we do live a long time. I can't imagine only living to 60 though...how do you have time to choose a career? Are they picked for you? And even then, how do you have time to train? I was scouted out for mine around...ah...twenty five? I didn't train right away, I spent some time on the family boat fishing--it's what we've done for centuries. I think I actually left home and started training at around thirty two, and I was not given my blade until I was fifty. And then it was another ten or so years before I officially became a--"

Ridahne stopped herself, mouth still open as she tried to come up with a way to divert the subject gracefully. But nothing came. She'd gone too far, gotten too relaxed. She swore to herself that she would not lie to Darin, and she had a nagging sense that if she did, bad things would happen to her, or perhaps she wouldn't be able to at all. But that didn't mean she was ready to reveal all her skeletons just yet. They had only just met after all. What would Darin think of her if she knew not just what she'd done to earn execution and exile, but what she was?

The elf clamped her mouth shut and focused back down on the reins in her hands. The storm was getting closer and raindrops were imminent; she could smell the change in the air and while she liked the smell of rain and the sound of it out the window at night, she did not want to be caught in it. She was silent as she gave Tsura his head and let him gallop after Talbot, except when she eventually found a potential spot for camp and whistled sharply to catch Darin's attention.

Ridahne veered off the road, checking her horse to a walk as she investigated a cluster of boulders that formed an overhang, almost like a small cave. It wasn't much, but it would be dry. She hitched Tsura up with a long lead so he had a little room to move and began to quickly gather some wood before it got wet so they could have a fire.

"Do you know how to make a fire?" She asked Darin as she piled up a stock of wood.

In Dark Seas We Sail

There was sheer glee in those unnaturally blue eyes as Hana informed him that blowing up melons was easy. He liked melons, especially the ones that were red inside and green outside, but he once saw one drop off a cart at a market and since then he'd always thought about how fun it would be to wreck one somehow. Slicing, smashing, dropping, squishing, and now exploding. That settled it. He would absolutely have to track down a melon at the nearest opportunity and give it to her. That was worth swabbing the deck for.

Honestly though, he was a little surprised to hear her say that she couldn't think of a reason for blowing him up. A crab he could understand--who would actually want to blow up a crab? But him? No one had ever tried to explode him, per se, but he had enough evidence in his short life to conclude that someone would. He thought that she knew that. Certainly if she hated vokurians that would be the case--those people looked for excuses to destroy his people. So maybe she didn't? If she couldn't think of a reason to blow him up, maybe she wasn't so bad as he'd originally thought.

Rohaan shrugged, quieting a little as he stared at his grimy toes. "I dunno. Other people do." He said this with a kind of grim certainty that no ten year old should possess. And in that moment it was clear that what childhood innocence he had was long ago stripped away from him. Yet he had come a long way since he'd escaped the Barizians, and under Berlin's care and tutelage he had regained a little of the carefree joy that was entitled to a boy his age. He looked up at her, considering deeply with a thoughtful frown, and then with a toothy smile he stuck out his hand for her to shake. "Okay, deal! I don't wanna eat everybody, just people that try to hurt me. And if you don't wanna hurt me then I don't wanna eat you," he said brightly. "If I did, who would teach me reading?"

Berlin, who had intentionally stayed silent during this exchange, watched the lad quietly with no small amount of pride welling up in his chest. He really had come a long way. He looked to Hana too and gave the tiniest little nod of approval. There was relief in his eyes; clearly he wanted the two of them to work and seeing progress in that direction heartened him. "Lad, there was something you were going to ask her, wasn't there?"
Rohaan thought for a moment, then, "oh! Uh...yeah.." He seemed to get a little nervous again, but only a little. "Do you, um...well tonight I'm gonna go on a long flight to spy on the Bar-i-zi-ans?" He looked to Berlin, who nodded. The word was new to him even though he knew who they were, and his particular dialect of vokurian did not have 'z' as one of their sounds, nor did they have 'p', which was part of the reason he never called Berlin 'Cap'n' and instead opted for 'Ca-mm'. "Anyway I'm sore from training with Wheel yesterday and I was wondering if...uh, do you have stuff to make sore muscles feel better? Annndd....can we do letters again?"

---

Uban had a hunk of very dry bread in his mouth when Wheel took the kettle from him, so instead of actually saying 'thank you' he really just made some muffled noises of appreciation. He held out the mug in one hand; it shook in his grip. Swallowing his mouthful he nodded exuberantly and said, "Mm, yeah! It was fantastic! Man, you missed the finale--between her and me, we made something like grenadoes except they're a bit different. I set them off so they go off when I want them to. And like, I figured out how to arc to a fired ball so it's almost like shooting lightning, but they have to be engraved with this special...rune thing or something, an enchantment, and then I can...can connect to it. I didn't know I could do that at all until she showed me this medallion of hers. I'm doing all kinds of new things! Summoning drunk colossal turtles, making cannonballs explode..." His eyes were a bright gold, giving his expression a kind of wild vibe.

The Tree of Astra (LadyAnnaLee and Blackfridayrule)

Might be able to this weekend tho since I’ve been off it and it’s omproving.

The Tree of Astra (LadyAnnaLee and Blackfridayrule)

Sorry again bad tendinitis my body is a wreck. Haven’t abandoned u just can’t use a comp

In Dark Seas We Sail

Rohaan was very interested to hear Hana's explanation, interested enough that he actually approached her within arms reach--something he hadn't recently been inclined to do. He looked up at her with eyes of an impossible shade of blue like two polished rounds of lapis lazuli, bright and inquisitive, and brushed his sloppy blonde curls out of his face. he did not have perfect corkscrews, nor did he have loose waves but rather had a haphazard mix of both. To his credit, he tried very hard to follow what she said and for a while he thought he did pretty well, but at some point she used words he did not know, and while he was stuck trying to piece them out, he didn't quite take in the rest. He did pick up 'wine bottles shatter' and that piqued his interest. Why wouldn't he want to do that for fun? it sounded plenty fun for him.

Rohaan gave Hana an earnest but very lost expression before glancing questioningly to Berlin, who gave a brief explanation in rapid vokurian, which the boy seemed to take in better. The language had a 'jagged' feel to it, with odd breaks in the middle of words and prominent, hard vowels. Berlin had learned vokurian better than Rohaan had picked up Carisian, and so the man was reasonably fluent, though he had his shortcomings too.

The boy nodded, thinking, then asked, "Oh! Soo....can you...explode Berlin's spyglass?"
A look of mock alarm brushed the man's features. "No, please no."
This made Rohaan smile. "What abouuuuut...." he cast around with his eyes, searching for things to be destroyed. "Umm..." Idly, his finger poked through the bullet hole in his shirt and twirled the fabric around it, unraveled it, then wound it up again. "Wheel's boots? A melon? A crab?" he froze suddenly, eyes going wide in sheer horror as he realized something, then as he looked at her again he seemed almost a little more withdrawn than he was a second ago. "You...wouldn't explode me.....would you?" Nothing about his tone or expression suggested he was joking; in fact, he was gravely serious. Clearly, it was well within his scope of understanding that if someone could, it was very possible they would.

Uban stretched, feeling like he'd just done a hard day's work in the fields or up aloft. It was satisfying in a way, to feel like he had labored for something productive. Except his muscles weren't sore, he just felt shaky and hungry and like he'd earned himself some reclining. He was still laughing to himself softly, absolutely giddy with what he (and Hana) had just done. There were so many things he hadn't thought of doing with his ability, and this was one of them. He turned, silently watching Hana as she spoke to Rohaan. Damn, she's smart. Hell of a lot smarter than me. Uban caught himself grinning and, shaking his head as if to clear something away, went to go down to the hold and find himself some food. He rejoined the rest once he'd pilfered some salt pork, the last of the bread (which was now fairly dry) and some tea to wash it down. He needed to do that kind exercise more often, he decided, because he felt wiped out now.

"That was absolutely incredible," he said. "Maybe next time you could teach me the runes or draw them out with charcoal first and I could help you carve them? I dunno what kind of tools you got, but if you need proper ones Rohaan here can get you some next time we dock." Uban slid one hand over the boy's head to sweep pale blonde curls into his face.
Rohaan playfully slapped Uban's arm and 'fixed' his hair, which only meant sweeping it back so that some strands lay back down and others stuck straight up. But he looked at Hana and, taking pride in his renown as an...obtainer of things, he stuck his chin up proudly and with his arms folded across his chest he boasted, "I can get anything."