Ashh
Frettzo
VecNokeyeor 1 - Nokeyeor 2 - Nokeyor 3 - Mesathalssa Divinus Wikia page
Tsoti 1 (62 PR)
As the sky went from a hue of dark bluish grey to a brighter, almost platinum color that most would associate with an overcast day or twilight, yet to people like Dzora, it was the start of a bright day.
The aged woman went to the lake which her tribe had settled eons ago but over the last century had become increasingly more like an agglomeration of people of all sorts due to the exodus from the core regions of the land caused by the advancing... thing. Nobody knew what exactly it was, but the once dark skies of the dusklands were slowly changing, and along with them so did the land and its people. One couldn't help but wonder if one day it would reach this region too, it was at the very frontier of the dusk, but it was within it.
Such worries did not really cross the woman's mind, trading the clothes she had sewed last night for food was a more immediate worry. She was not one of those who sewed with the fancy clothes the great leaders used, in fact, she didn't even know those sort of things existed until more people arrived, she simply made simple garbs from the simpler silks and fabrics she had access too, and it had been working well so far, she had enough to feed the family... and that one person who lived with them.
A priest of sorts, it was one odd young man, spent most of the day scribbling odd symbols on paper and most of the night running around going from campfire to campfire talking with people. He was enthusiastic, for sure, and it was the duty of a family to support a religious person, but she really did not understand that young man at all, and he barely spoke of the gods or did any sort of divination or healing ritual. Furthermore, since it was her young daughter who introduced him to the family, Dzora had this vague hope he was the sort of 'priest' who didn't care much about those rules on not engaging in mortal affairs and that he would help to make the girl finally settle up and stop with her ideas of being a traveler musician living among the luxury of the clan-courts. She was very wrong on that assumption, the priest not only was very strict on his faith, but he only fueled the girl's passion by talking about his theories on how music worked among other silly things.
A variety of mushrooms, some fish and a bag of beans, also a little jar of honey. Fish was something someone needed every day or two, all else would last for a bit longer. She was about to leave the market when suddenly she suddenly noticed a stall almost hidden in the chaotic jumble of shelves, baskets, tents, and goods. It was a little place where all sorts of fabrics were sold, not something Dzora needed since her family provided most of the materials to fuel her craft, but this one had something that caught her eye, among the many goods for sale there were silken golden threads. She had never seen something quite like that.
"Excuse me, but from where does this come from? It seems to be silk, but I have never seen something with this metal like gleam before." she asked, inspecting it against the dim light of the midday sun.
"It comes from the odd lands, my husbands were part of a group that tried to explore it." the merchant pressed her lips together and frowned. "It is why we moved as far as we could. But even here they still find no easy sleep, we might move into the Metzetzufivih"
"The foreign lands? Is it not dangerous?"
"They say the land near ours is not as dangerous, that some of us have found a decent life down there. But you are basically making your own home there. For anywhere but in the wildest of wilds there is great hostility."
"If things come that far, I wish you and your family luck. Ah, I have a priest living with my family, would he..."
"Sadly not, we called many priests already but none could quite help them out of their fever. Ah, and do not worry about the threads, I have been holding them for a while now and I have never felt ill or out of my mind."
"Ah, do not worry about such things. So, what would you be willing to trade the threads for? I have some fur blankets and wooden wheels that could be used for a cart."
"We have a cart, so the blankets would be a better trade."
"They are at my home, however."
"I see, and you seem to have already got food so it would be rude of me to have you go and then return. Will you be here tomorrow?"
"You could also go with me to my home, so you can pick which blankets you think will be better suited for your family."
"Would that be fine?"
"Of course, of course, a visit is always welcomed." Dzora had her chest thrust out and a satisfied smile, she was very proud of her home and to show it to others gave her a sense of pride.
"I see." the merchant turned around and talked with someone in a thicker accent, soon, a woman that could be deduced to be her younger sister walked in and took over the watch of the market stall. "We may go, should you wish." Dzora nodded.
The seamstress did not live all that far from the market ground, her home was a round one, bigger than most but not exactly rich. Like most of the traditional houses of the area, it was made of many lean-to partitions surrounding an open area in a full circle. (or sometimes a square or triangle, but Dzanya culture generally favored circles over squares.) The better off families had a taller wooden or rock wall with a door which served as the main entrance to the area, poorer families simply had a wooden arch at best, though some effort was put into that, not only because the front door was used to identify homes and as a symbol of pride, but also because it was often the place of many religious rituals to bless the family.
Dzora's was a well decorated one, the double wooden gate had a delicate painting of orange and purple flowers among many symbols, a little altar garden and a couple of whirligigs since it was wind season. Entering the home led to a small area where clothes and goods were temporally kept before leading into the wide open area that was the center of any home in the southern cultures under the land of the dusk.
All rooms of the house connected to this main central roofless room, though in many homes it was just a simple grassy area, in homes of richer or dedicated people it was often common to have more elaborate gardens. Dzora was one of those for sure, flowers were kept as well as mirrored fountains, where the mirror helped the water to evaporate faster thus making the air in the home fresher. By far, however, the fairest of the things in the garden was a young woman who was not-so-calmly playing a very calm tune on a lamellophone-type instrument, it was impressive how the tone was soft and nostalgic despite the musician's frowning face, also impressive was how she managed to keep a gentle expression despite the frowning and lip biting.
All of that attention would be suddenly interrupted by Dzora, who had, without warning, wrapped a string around the woman's head. She gasped, but the older one laughed and continued for a bit before making a knot on one end of the rope.
"What was that for!? You have ruined my music." the younger one complained.
"You will see." Dzora answered with a half-smile. "Ah, this is my daughter, Batsami."
"Ah, she is quite beautiful, like the visage of Momumepo." the seamstress told, perhaps exaggerating in exchange for all the hospitality, but not all that much.
"Bah! If she is similar to a god of any sort it would be because she has the personality of Llunarin" the mother added playfully, causing the daughter to yet again gasp and complain.
The stranger, however, was just confused. Was that not something nice to say? She did not understand the joke at all, in her homeland, the tales were quite different.
"Ah sorry, let me not waste your time. Here, let me show you the blankets as I promised." Dzora said, the visitor nodded and followed her into one of the rooms that surrounded that open area in a circle.
"STOP" someone suddenly yelled, causing the poor visitor to jump. "There goes my lle line and half of my nye" a young man said, sighing loudly and trying to restore the lines he had drawn on the ground.
Dzora cringed and moved closer to save face at the rudeness. "This is the priest I talked about. Nevermind his manners, he is a good boy, just... a bit too focused."
"Ah, I see, I am sorry, did I cause you some trouble?" the visitor told, looking at the ground and the odd symbols the man had made on it.
Without looking away, he sighed. "I think I saved the damage, gah, what a disaster." he continued to carve the hardened dirt floor with a stone knife.
"And what are these symbols? Some sort of ritual?"
"Letters"
"Letters?"
"Yes? The things that compose a word? Surely you heard about them."
"Do not be rude," Dzora complained, but the visitor did not seem to mind.
"Ah, I see. So... these are supposed to be letters? Can I make a word with them? Like making a number by carving lines on wood, right?"
"That would be the idea, yes."
"Mavadzugji is full of these ideas. He spends all daytime carving things or shuffling through leather sheets and clay tablets. He also has always something to say about whatever you ask him about, like, I could ask him about beans and he would have some ancient lore about it."
"Would he?"
"Beans?" he asked, having zoned out of the conversation to work on his letters. "Here in the south of the land under the dusk we make bean into a paste, unlike other regions, this is a heritage from the Llahinhar. The Llahin have a weak constitution and are sick at the sight of fibers and unevenness, which they think is related to Pudzutsa Mudzu."
"Llahin? Are you sure it is not the other way around?" The visitor said in clear confusion. "I have doubts Llahin would have invented something that we use. Gah, I hope I do not meet any while in the Metzetzufivih, from the stories they sound pretty grotesque with their beaks and odd eyes."
"You are going to the foreign lands?" Now the priest had his face up, a spark of interest in his eyes. "To where, in particular?"
"I do not know. Our plan is to find a place to settle, though I have been considering the cities, I heard Kiviko is quite beautiful."
"I would not recommend that, the coastland is dangerous."
The visitor tilted her head slightly. "But my older husband's friend said it was living in prosperity now, that they had a queen, uh, Hindja?"
"Runza Hindja-Tanfongje has been dead for a long while, she was also not the ruler of Kiviko, but of, well, Hindja." he explained. "Not that it matters, people of the coast hate us, so you wouldn't be welcomed into their cities. Furthermore, we are on the opposite end of the frontier with the coastal area, you would need to travel for many days westward to reach it."
"Ah... Well, then I guess we will be stuck with settling the wildlands then!"
"Talk with Mutaraka on the village upstream from here. Give me a moment." Mavadzugji stood up and searched his room for something, soon returning with a beige blank sheet and a sharpened charcoal in his hand. "I do not know if your family is composed of farmers on hunters, but either way you would be better off by finding the settlements with some non-foreign population as they could help you to figure out how to grow mushrooms in the sunlands or what animals to seek."
The visitor looked as he drew what looked like a map. "Oh, what is this? Some sort of..."
"Paper. It's made like hete, but the podzika leaves are fully dried up."
"Oh! I had no idea you could use podzika for more than just white dye and hete powder."
"He invented it," Dzora added. "But it is not very useful, not even for maps, it crumbles too easily. Notice how he does not practice his carvings on the paper? Not even he trusts it."
"Done. Dzora is right. Keep it dry or you will lose it. I do not think it will rain in the next few days though. Mutaraka can probably give you better directions than the map."
"Thank you again!" The visitor said.
"Do you want to see the blankets now?"
"Oh right." with that and a few more thanks, the two left to the room where Dzora practiced her sewing and stored her clothes. Mavadzugji sighed and went back to his work, back to the natural silence of the house, save for the melody Batsami played on the metal of the lamellophone. Dzora's words had accidentally hurt him, it was as if she mistrusted his plan to one day fill the parchment and paper with letters and words. He looked to his right, to the clay tablets which according to his father had been brought from a library in the coastland of the sunland, in them much of the lore and history of those lands was stored.
If the word "Dzanyawahar" had tormented Tihtzin, to Mavadzugji, the word was "Tsoti".
Tsoti 1 (62 PR)
As the sky went from a hue of dark bluish grey to a brighter, almost platinum color that most would associate with an overcast day or twilight, yet to people like Dzora, it was the start of a bright day.
The aged woman went to the lake which her tribe had settled eons ago but over the last century had become increasingly more like an agglomeration of people of all sorts due to the exodus from the core regions of the land caused by the advancing... thing. Nobody knew what exactly it was, but the once dark skies of the dusklands were slowly changing, and along with them so did the land and its people. One couldn't help but wonder if one day it would reach this region too, it was at the very frontier of the dusk, but it was within it.
Such worries did not really cross the woman's mind, trading the clothes she had sewed last night for food was a more immediate worry. She was not one of those who sewed with the fancy clothes the great leaders used, in fact, she didn't even know those sort of things existed until more people arrived, she simply made simple garbs from the simpler silks and fabrics she had access too, and it had been working well so far, she had enough to feed the family... and that one person who lived with them.
A priest of sorts, it was one odd young man, spent most of the day scribbling odd symbols on paper and most of the night running around going from campfire to campfire talking with people. He was enthusiastic, for sure, and it was the duty of a family to support a religious person, but she really did not understand that young man at all, and he barely spoke of the gods or did any sort of divination or healing ritual. Furthermore, since it was her young daughter who introduced him to the family, Dzora had this vague hope he was the sort of 'priest' who didn't care much about those rules on not engaging in mortal affairs and that he would help to make the girl finally settle up and stop with her ideas of being a traveler musician living among the luxury of the clan-courts. She was very wrong on that assumption, the priest not only was very strict on his faith, but he only fueled the girl's passion by talking about his theories on how music worked among other silly things.
A variety of mushrooms, some fish and a bag of beans, also a little jar of honey. Fish was something someone needed every day or two, all else would last for a bit longer. She was about to leave the market when suddenly she suddenly noticed a stall almost hidden in the chaotic jumble of shelves, baskets, tents, and goods. It was a little place where all sorts of fabrics were sold, not something Dzora needed since her family provided most of the materials to fuel her craft, but this one had something that caught her eye, among the many goods for sale there were silken golden threads. She had never seen something quite like that.
"Excuse me, but from where does this come from? It seems to be silk, but I have never seen something with this metal like gleam before." she asked, inspecting it against the dim light of the midday sun.
"It comes from the odd lands, my husbands were part of a group that tried to explore it." the merchant pressed her lips together and frowned. "It is why we moved as far as we could. But even here they still find no easy sleep, we might move into the Metzetzufivih"
"The foreign lands? Is it not dangerous?"
"They say the land near ours is not as dangerous, that some of us have found a decent life down there. But you are basically making your own home there. For anywhere but in the wildest of wilds there is great hostility."
"If things come that far, I wish you and your family luck. Ah, I have a priest living with my family, would he..."
"Sadly not, we called many priests already but none could quite help them out of their fever. Ah, and do not worry about the threads, I have been holding them for a while now and I have never felt ill or out of my mind."
"Ah, do not worry about such things. So, what would you be willing to trade the threads for? I have some fur blankets and wooden wheels that could be used for a cart."
"We have a cart, so the blankets would be a better trade."
"They are at my home, however."
"I see, and you seem to have already got food so it would be rude of me to have you go and then return. Will you be here tomorrow?"
"You could also go with me to my home, so you can pick which blankets you think will be better suited for your family."
"Would that be fine?"
"Of course, of course, a visit is always welcomed." Dzora had her chest thrust out and a satisfied smile, she was very proud of her home and to show it to others gave her a sense of pride.
"I see." the merchant turned around and talked with someone in a thicker accent, soon, a woman that could be deduced to be her younger sister walked in and took over the watch of the market stall. "We may go, should you wish." Dzora nodded.
The seamstress did not live all that far from the market ground, her home was a round one, bigger than most but not exactly rich. Like most of the traditional houses of the area, it was made of many lean-to partitions surrounding an open area in a full circle. (or sometimes a square or triangle, but Dzanya culture generally favored circles over squares.) The better off families had a taller wooden or rock wall with a door which served as the main entrance to the area, poorer families simply had a wooden arch at best, though some effort was put into that, not only because the front door was used to identify homes and as a symbol of pride, but also because it was often the place of many religious rituals to bless the family.
Dzora's was a well decorated one, the double wooden gate had a delicate painting of orange and purple flowers among many symbols, a little altar garden and a couple of whirligigs since it was wind season. Entering the home led to a small area where clothes and goods were temporally kept before leading into the wide open area that was the center of any home in the southern cultures under the land of the dusk.
All rooms of the house connected to this main central roofless room, though in many homes it was just a simple grassy area, in homes of richer or dedicated people it was often common to have more elaborate gardens. Dzora was one of those for sure, flowers were kept as well as mirrored fountains, where the mirror helped the water to evaporate faster thus making the air in the home fresher. By far, however, the fairest of the things in the garden was a young woman who was not-so-calmly playing a very calm tune on a lamellophone-type instrument, it was impressive how the tone was soft and nostalgic despite the musician's frowning face, also impressive was how she managed to keep a gentle expression despite the frowning and lip biting.
All of that attention would be suddenly interrupted by Dzora, who had, without warning, wrapped a string around the woman's head. She gasped, but the older one laughed and continued for a bit before making a knot on one end of the rope.
"What was that for!? You have ruined my music." the younger one complained.
"You will see." Dzora answered with a half-smile. "Ah, this is my daughter, Batsami."
"Ah, she is quite beautiful, like the visage of Momumepo." the seamstress told, perhaps exaggerating in exchange for all the hospitality, but not all that much.
"Bah! If she is similar to a god of any sort it would be because she has the personality of Llunarin" the mother added playfully, causing the daughter to yet again gasp and complain.
The stranger, however, was just confused. Was that not something nice to say? She did not understand the joke at all, in her homeland, the tales were quite different.
"Ah sorry, let me not waste your time. Here, let me show you the blankets as I promised." Dzora said, the visitor nodded and followed her into one of the rooms that surrounded that open area in a circle.
"STOP" someone suddenly yelled, causing the poor visitor to jump. "There goes my lle line and half of my nye" a young man said, sighing loudly and trying to restore the lines he had drawn on the ground.
Dzora cringed and moved closer to save face at the rudeness. "This is the priest I talked about. Nevermind his manners, he is a good boy, just... a bit too focused."
"Ah, I see, I am sorry, did I cause you some trouble?" the visitor told, looking at the ground and the odd symbols the man had made on it.
Without looking away, he sighed. "I think I saved the damage, gah, what a disaster." he continued to carve the hardened dirt floor with a stone knife.
"And what are these symbols? Some sort of ritual?"
"Letters"
"Letters?"
"Yes? The things that compose a word? Surely you heard about them."
"Do not be rude," Dzora complained, but the visitor did not seem to mind.
"Ah, I see. So... these are supposed to be letters? Can I make a word with them? Like making a number by carving lines on wood, right?"
"That would be the idea, yes."
"Mavadzugji is full of these ideas. He spends all daytime carving things or shuffling through leather sheets and clay tablets. He also has always something to say about whatever you ask him about, like, I could ask him about beans and he would have some ancient lore about it."
"Would he?"
"Beans?" he asked, having zoned out of the conversation to work on his letters. "Here in the south of the land under the dusk we make bean into a paste, unlike other regions, this is a heritage from the Llahinhar. The Llahin have a weak constitution and are sick at the sight of fibers and unevenness, which they think is related to Pudzutsa Mudzu."
"Llahin? Are you sure it is not the other way around?" The visitor said in clear confusion. "I have doubts Llahin would have invented something that we use. Gah, I hope I do not meet any while in the Metzetzufivih, from the stories they sound pretty grotesque with their beaks and odd eyes."
"You are going to the foreign lands?" Now the priest had his face up, a spark of interest in his eyes. "To where, in particular?"
"I do not know. Our plan is to find a place to settle, though I have been considering the cities, I heard Kiviko is quite beautiful."
"I would not recommend that, the coastland is dangerous."
The visitor tilted her head slightly. "But my older husband's friend said it was living in prosperity now, that they had a queen, uh, Hindja?"
"Runza Hindja-Tanfongje has been dead for a long while, she was also not the ruler of Kiviko, but of, well, Hindja." he explained. "Not that it matters, people of the coast hate us, so you wouldn't be welcomed into their cities. Furthermore, we are on the opposite end of the frontier with the coastal area, you would need to travel for many days westward to reach it."
"Ah... Well, then I guess we will be stuck with settling the wildlands then!"
"Talk with Mutaraka on the village upstream from here. Give me a moment." Mavadzugji stood up and searched his room for something, soon returning with a beige blank sheet and a sharpened charcoal in his hand. "I do not know if your family is composed of farmers on hunters, but either way you would be better off by finding the settlements with some non-foreign population as they could help you to figure out how to grow mushrooms in the sunlands or what animals to seek."
The visitor looked as he drew what looked like a map. "Oh, what is this? Some sort of..."
"Paper. It's made like hete, but the podzika leaves are fully dried up."
"Oh! I had no idea you could use podzika for more than just white dye and hete powder."
"He invented it," Dzora added. "But it is not very useful, not even for maps, it crumbles too easily. Notice how he does not practice his carvings on the paper? Not even he trusts it."
"Done. Dzora is right. Keep it dry or you will lose it. I do not think it will rain in the next few days though. Mutaraka can probably give you better directions than the map."
"Thank you again!" The visitor said.
"Do you want to see the blankets now?"
"Oh right." with that and a few more thanks, the two left to the room where Dzora practiced her sewing and stored her clothes. Mavadzugji sighed and went back to his work, back to the natural silence of the house, save for the melody Batsami played on the metal of the lamellophone. Dzora's words had accidentally hurt him, it was as if she mistrusted his plan to one day fill the parchment and paper with letters and words. He looked to his right, to the clay tablets which according to his father had been brought from a library in the coastland of the sunland, in them much of the lore and history of those lands was stored.
If the word "Dzanyawahar" had tormented Tihtzin, to Mavadzugji, the word was "Tsoti".
