Thar Shaddin

Winter 122PW

Shiv growled in frustration as he wandered through the Tian Xian port city. He hated this place. He didn't speak the language, he hated the food, and he hated the exotic smells. But this is where his ship had stopped, divulging cargo, passengers, and crew. He swallowed a bit, remembering how the captain had spat on him. Saying, "We don't need a tattooed freak for the return trip." He wasn't a freak. It wasn't his fault the Captain hadn't listened to his warnings. He had told him the spirits were offended by the lack of an offering upon departure. So Shiv had liberated a chicken from the cargo hold and secured them safe passage with a sacrifice. They had stripped his shirt from his back and flogged him for stealing cargo, and he had been labeled a freak since.

He walked down the streets with his heavy duffle over his shoulder. What would he do now? How would he even secure passage? His earrings flashed in the sun light as he rubbed a hand over his hand, feeling the familiar small scars of the ravens tattooed on each side of his head. Ravens for luck. Ravens for travel, and to find a new place. The Raven flew on and on forever, and he was the Raven. He never settled down. With a chuckle and another trace, he rehefted his bag and started walking. He would find a way. A way to fly from this place, just like a Raven.

Eternity had passed between two vast, empty spaces. The day was ruled by Sun, and the night warred between Moon and Stars. Sky was what kept Kuyeix sane, but it was the churning deep that held her attention. All honor lay within the hearts of the men she'd been sent to find, whether those hearts yet beat or were hard and cold.

Such charms had her elder Totems crafted, such chants had the Raven moeity matriarch laid for Kuyeix that it was an impossibility to think of failing. There was war. Raven himself would gut her if she could not complete her task. She could not go home without her men with her. If she did not find them she would die in exile among the savage foreigners. Her people knew of Tian Xia, of course; Wolf was as cunning as he was patient, and the People respected his wishes by keeping an eye upon all their enemies and neighbors.

There to Tian Xia Kuyeix flew, raven winged and aloft on determination and desperation in equal parts. Airbourne past the stars and foam topped waves, Raven-favored to survive heavy winds and storms. All the way to find her men and rejoin the war as Totem, proven.

One day the world grew to include earth and the great stink of many people. Kuyeix had known the day would soon arrive, but even still the whole of it stunned her. Their boats -- for surely they must be boats -- were impossibly huge, bristling with upright sticks and cloth to catch the wind with. The Matriarchs had said she would see one thousand impossible things, but Kuyeix had not put too much faith into those words, thinking them nothing more than caution.

She glided over the boats, looking down with doubt in her heart. Below her people lived out their lives, and she could not help but wonder how she would find her tribesmen among them. She was prepared for foreign languages, having received charms to facillitate quick absorbtion of unfamiliar words, but in such a mix of people a few more strangers would not make much of an impact.

Kuyeix was tired. Her wings ached, and after so long a time in raven shape there was a prickling of discomfort, as though her human limbs chafed at the restraint. She had leaned upon Raven during her flight, and doubtless He would not appreciate her borrowing his strength for longer than necessary.

She flew past the boats and over the strangely rigid homes of the people. It was as the Matriarchs had said: buildings. The people were supposed to be like the buildings, stiff and unbending in their ways. Kuyeix would do well to keep out of their way unless it involved finding her men. She dropped into a sidestreet, too tired to do more than take a brief glance to make sure she would not land on someone, and changed as she dropped so that when she landed it was human feet that hit the ground.

She took immediate stock of herself. She had prepared many offerings for Raven, of course, and even so most of her jewelry was gone. Perversely, the ink of the raven tattoos on her hands was glossy and bright, and she scowled at the reminder of Raven's close watch on her. As if she needed reminding that many expectations had traveled with her to such a strange land!

Her blanket, draped over her shoulders, had pockets of dried meats secreted about it, and she pulled some out to eat as she looked around, unsure of her next move.

"Get outta the way!"

Shiv almost screamed in frustration. Apparently, these two big bastards knew each other. The Trolls did look a like, but then again, they all looked a like. They had decided to just sit down in the middle of the road and talk to each other, blocking the wagons and foot traffic from going either way in the mid-sized street. He looked around in a state moving from frustration to anger. This is why he liked being on the open ocean, not this pox ridden towns. Everyone was always so pressed together here. On a ship, he could piss right off the bow if he wanted. He was willing to bet if he drained the dragon right where he stood, he'd get cracked in the head or dragged off to jail.

Finally losing his temper, he pushed and shoved his way through the crowds, even climbing up and over the side of wagon. He finally reached an alley and smiled, kicking off his shoes to put them in his bag. The buildings were packed together so tightly here, this would be a breeze. His fingers and toes hooked into the spaces that were filled with crumbling mortar between stones, and up he went. He reached the roof and looked out over the harbor. Three masters! They were always taking work on the big ships. He just needed to go seven houses up and across the street.

He climbed the to top of the roof, pausing to touch the good luck tattoos on the palms of his hands. Taking a deep breath, he took off running, trusting the tattoos for speed on his feet to help him out. He almost reached the edge before he launched himself, clearing the relatively small gap and landing on the other side. He slide a bit on the angled roof, but managed to get his fingers dug into the shingles and climb to do it all over again. This would be a very long day.

In the silence that echoed from the stiff walls around her, and the unfamiliar smells of the city, Kuyeix could feel the glint of Raven's feathers. Unerringly she turned in the direction of the sea, though she could not see it beyond the unnatural barriers that surrounded her. There was some mysticism in being a stranger who had arrived by unknown means. Kuyeix had flown past the ships in their maze of tethers, for she had intended to not be seen. She had accomplished this desire, and now she hesitated as she turned over the prospect of searching for information among the impossible floating villages.

Sea to sea, was it not? Kuyeix started walking without further thought, her step faltering only when a rush of air and heavy mass passed above her head. She looked up seconds too late, tensing as she tasted the air for danger. Her overstimulated senses, pumped up with the charms of her elder Totems, assured the innocence in the air, and she kept moving. She avoided the most tight-pressed packs of bodies, but those people she did pass largely ignored her as she ignored them. She did garner some stares, but the tilt of her eyes and shade of her skin were too similar to the natural-born of Tian Xia to mark her as more than a very eccentric individual.

Eventually she shimmied between two very closely spaced buildings and came out upon the tangled wooden platforms that stood jauntily upon the shifting rocks and sands below. It looked to Kuyeix to be a very shoddy and unnecessary construction that should not support such movement or weight, but it was the path upon which she would begin her quest of questions, and so she stepped out upon it with the innumerable strangers who tread quickly their own lives. She reeled step to step, her agility only slightly hampered by the pressure of exhaustion held back by her heavy useage of charms. She would start at one end, she reasoned, and make her way to the other.

As she walked, her ears inhaled the spice of language crowding the air around her: her first piecemeal introduction to the many variations of speech that she would soon be using to find her brethren.

Shiv shimmied down a drain pipe, darting through the foot traffic and across the street. He burst through a narrow alley like a babe through the birth canal, and was born out on the other side. This section of the dock was a bit different, a bit more shoddily put together. The big merchant ships from the other lands had only recently returned, and the old docks hadn't been able to accommodate many. So these shoddier ones had been built. They were boards and logs clapped together, but they would keep him out of the sucking sand and the filthy harbor water. He hoped so anyways.

He shucked out of his shirt, stowing it in his bag along with his other possessions. It helped in getting a job to show that you could bring muscle with you. Plenty of whipcord lean boys wanting work, but didn't a one of them have a bit of muscle on their bones. Shiv might have been that lean, but his muscles covered his body, and were as hard as ballast stones. The humidity of this part of the world had already made his body sweat, his tattoos glistening under the moisture. His entire chest was covered with the good luck charms and esoteric designs. His stomach was covered as well, along with the front and back of his shoulders, his arms, and his hands. Sometimes, it did scare off potential crews, but he usually got the job. Now, to just walk around until he saw... There!

The universal sign for hiring at a port was a man sitting at the gangplank with a book in front of him. He would explain (or do the best language would allow) what the ship was doing, where it was going, and then you would make your mark and join the ship. Shiv touched one of the luck marks on his chest and started walking towards it. Time for a new adventure.

"Outta the way!"

The answer had nothing to do with Kuyeix's question, but she stepped obediently aside to let the bigger man take his burden elsewhere. She was not surprised that the tangle of people were so omnipresently rude and upset: given the disorderly chaos how could a sane person not become messed in the head? So she moved on, asking her questions of every man who stood still or moved slowly enough for her to get a word in edgewise. For the most part they were not impressed with her, as she was not with them, and most of her answers ran along the lines of crude dismissal.

Not a good sign. Kuyeix had not expected immediate results, but the blatant disrespect was jarring. As a Totem of Raven -- even a junior Totem! -- Kuyeix had come to expect a certain decorum from those who addressed her. Truly, the people of Tian Xia were lost. Just as she would be if she could not make the circumstances work for her. The very thought about being stuck among such savages made her shiver, and she straightened to her full height, chin jutting outwards.

There was a man sitting at the end of a long plank of wood that connected the boat to the wooden platform Kuyeix and all the others walked upon. He looked like a formidable man, but that mattered little to her. She walked up to him until her toes nearly touched his toes, and bent down slightly so he would have an unimpeded view of her face. She grinned at him, undaunted by the fact that she had no ochre in her face or hair (Raven had taken both; she supposed He punished her for her vanity). "You see strange men, yes? Like me, yes?"

Shiv scowled in anger as someone stepped in front of him. There was a line here for a reason! You couldn't just walk around all of the other people and try to get work. If this person got the last spot on the ship, he would be irate. Irate enough to beat seven kinds of bruise into their hides and then try and take their spot. He scowled again, watching as they crowded the person doing the hiring. Spirits damn it. He was tempted to go elsewhere, but all the other ships had lines far back. This one wasn't very big, and it was old, but it seemed a good shit still. Looked well taken care of.

He crossed his arms and waited. He didn't have any other choice. He couldn't talk to the official with people in front of him, and this was most likely his best chance to get hired. He got a good feeling off this ship. His good feelings were usually something to follow.

The man stared at Kuyeix, his round face crinkling up with lines in a way that was both foreign and familiar. "What is this? Is this a joke? Who is this woman? Begone with you, crone! I'll have no strange women aboard my ship as crew. Daimons take you for good measure, fah!"

Crone? Surely that could not be an accurate translation. Kuyeix found her face heating. As if she would willingly partake in his "crew" even if she did not have a prior task to complete. Raven surely laughed at her forlorn pride, but she puffed herself up and refused to budge.

"I look for men like me. Have you seen men like me? I do not want your crew," Kuyeix spoke slowly and patiently, tilting her head at the sitting, plainly garbed man.
"I don't know what you keep babbling on about, get out of my way. You're wasting my time." The man gestured at someone behind Kuyeix, giving her the stone side of his face.

Kuyeix smiled tightly. She could accept a simple no as an answer, but being bullied by some lowly squab of a man who was so unadorned as to not even register on any measure of power was not acceptable. Even were she not a Totem she would have found the offense intolerable. She deliberately stepped in front of where he leaned and bent slightly at the waist to see into his eyes. She did not have any curses upon her at the moment, but a good eyeful of him would be good enough to remember.

"Do you not understand me?" She asked in a quiet, dangerous voice.

"Next man, step up! Are all of you big dumb louts or does a one of you have a bit of sense still rattling around in your head?"

That was his cue.

"Oi! I'll take whatever job you've got! There ain't a ship I can't sail on!"

Shiv stepped forward, walking around the strange woman. He did not particularly care for the way the man was speaking to her, but there was nothing he could do. Quickest way to lose a job was to start one off by taking your boss to task for being mean to women. For all he knew, this was to common way to treat women here. He had once stopped in a port where no woman walked the streets because it was illegal for them to do so, they had to stay in their section of town. Even the married ones. He simply needed to keep his mouth shut and hope for the job.

He flexed his muscles, trying to bring attention to the fact he was strong. His sun browned skin and callused hands and feet spoke to the life of hard labour he had already did. He wanted out of this city badly. The spirits did not like him being here. He could tell by the way his flesh crawled.

Mens' voices clamored for attention at the icy question, and Kuyeix found herself jostled aside. One voice rose clear above the rest, and it was to that man that the one she'd addressed asked his next question.

"Let's have your name, man, and previous jobs."

Everyone turned to look the loud man up and down, though for the most part they still bunched in tight, seeking his attention. It was very offputting to Kuyeix, for whom attention was a given due to her status. She was not a senior Totem, nor a matriarch, but where she went people whispered and asked for her thoughts to fly with them. The silly fluttering before her went beyond juvenile pettiness; it was utterly sophomoric. They did not behave like proper men, but rather a flock of undisciplined fledgelings. She had seen children act with more decorum than they.

Kuyeix pushed her way back in front of the man. No more did she care of her questions and the answers that should be properly given. It was respect, and show. She would not have her wings clipped so readily.

There was not much left on her that she could use for a trick, but she did have wandering hogweed seeds. While she would prefer to use them for self-defense within a curse charm -- they were difficult to get a hold of, and did not naturally grow well within the coastal areas of her people -- the situation was call for active measure. She slipped the small bag from her belt, and got into the ship man's personal space. His head turned, mouth opening to deliver more of his rubbish words, and she adroitly flicked her hand at him in dismissal, springing forth several of the seeds to land against his chest, down his shirt, and a few in his mouth.

Kuyeix was turning away, victorious (the symptoms would begin to show themselves in a matter of hours, should he stay out in the sun), when she caught sight of the loud man. More accurately, she caught sight of the raven tattoos on his face.

"You," she said immediately, pointing at him. "You come with me."

What in the hell did she want with him? Didn't matter anyways.

"No thanks madam."

Strange or not, she was still a woman, and it was his duty to at least talk nice at her. Spirits would desert a man who was not courteous, to them or to those who were supposed to be shown courtesy. He could feel the eyes of everyone on him. His right hand glided feather light over the jawbone tattooed on his own face.

"Worked the Sea Eagle when I turned 8 years old. Moved to Eagles Pride at 13, ship rotated out the crew when I was 18. Worked on and off ships since. I can sail on anything. Single mast, triple, battle ship, gnome steamer. Been to almost every good port there is. Every port in Eyropa, several here, I've even sailed through the Great Scar. Got my own weapons, used 'em once or twice as well. Ain't no master of th' blade, but I can defend a cargo like a shark set on some meat."

It was the same speech, told a thousand times before. Every time you arrived at the ship, this is what they expected you to do. Tell of your deeds, see if you were impressive enough to hire. He hated that. A sailor should be hired because he was smart and quick, strong enough to do the job. Not because you had killed a shark with your bare hands or surfed a typhoon wave. He had heard men make those claims at that! He guessed it had to do with morale. Had to have funny ones on the ship. Helped to have a good story teller to keep the boy-o's minds off the long trip. But by Hell, just hire a bard and teach him to sail!

All Kuyeix had to do was reach out and grab the big tattoed man's wrist and the cursed man's eyes were narrowing and he was spitting out more garbled junk.

"Is she with you then?" He looked the tattoed man up and down and curled his upper lip, "I'm afraid we have no room aboard for people like you. Next man, let's hear your part."

The cursed man's attention was elsewhere, and Kuyeix and her prize were effectively exorcized from the little power bubble. Kuyeix scowled at the cursed man, silently telling herself how she would find some time later to properly curse him, and then looked up at the raven-charmed man. "Come," she said impatiently, "we go to a quieter place. Come."

"YOU JUST LOST ME A JOB!"

Shiv couldn't help but yell at her. Now how was he supposed to get out of this Gods forsaken country? All of the lines for other departing ships were so long that they would be full hired by the time he even made it up to the hiring man. FUCK! What in the hell was he supposed to do now?

"Come with you! Why in the thousand hells would I do that?! I don't even know you!"

He jerked his arm free of her clutching hand and stared at her. What in the hell gave her the right to tell him what to do? He could already tell she was bad luck, losing him his job like she did. Bad luck wasn't something he wanted to deal with ever. He wasn't going to tempt his fate with this woman.

"You do not have your job, wretched thing. I have a job." Kuyeix scowled, and then pointed to her face where he had tattoos on his. She then showed him the raven beaks on the backs of her hands. "We are both marked by Raven. Who am I to question? Pah, this wood road is too loud. If you aren't stupid come with me and I explain it to you. You don't have a job, but you could. I give you what you want." She smiled at him wickedly and turned to go back the way she had come.

It was dangerous to refuse a gift from Raven, but coercing the man was outside of her range of ability in building curses. She could not force him, and she would have to court Raven's anger if he did not follow her. Such was the life of a Totem.

Shiv grumbled as he watched her walk off. She had a point. He was not going to get job here now. Might as well follow her, find a place to sleep tonight, and be back at it in the morning. Find a ship then, but make sure as hell that he lost the woman before then. Didn't need her following him ship to ship and losing him jobs. For a moment, his hand drifted to one of his ravens. He could tell by her looks and accent that she was not from the black forests of his homeland, so her ravens could not mean what his did. It was highly unlikely.

Shiv mumbled to himself as he hoisted his duffel bag to his shoulder and began to follow her. She calls me wretched thing? Mean ass wench. I've seen better looking dock whores. And she wants to call me wretched thing. He continued to grumble to himself as he nimbly side stepped a big troll moving some crates for a ship and kept her in his sights.