"Fancy seeing you around here," Amaryllis muttered as she walked up to Zahreen. It was a little dark out, as the sun was just setting, and Zahreen was sitting in front of his tent, tending to his swords. She didn't have anything to do, so she decided to see just how he was faring. It wasn't as though she really cared about him much, it was just that they often crossed paths since they were in the similar fields and their short interactions weren't what she would call negative. They weren't productive but neither one of them left with hurt feelings. Contract workers, such as mercenaries and assassins, set around Fraedia or in her case, who frequent Fraedia, usually knew each other. Word in the mercenary world travelled far.
And they both had reputations. Zahreen was often known for his strength, being a one-man regiment who could make more gold for his talent if he wasn't such an asshole all the the time. She could tell by the tired looks on the faces of the people who hired him that nobody was spared from his sharp tongue. She was known for the gruesome scenes she left behind and she could make more gold if she didn't restrict herself to assholes who deserved the brutality. She had standards – no amount of gold in the world would make her kill somebody simply because somebody didn't like them. She needed a damn good reason.
"This would be the first time we've worked together, huh?" Zahreen mumbled with a curiosity that just didn't seem to suit him.
"We never had much reason. You only need one person to kill a shit stain," she answered with a shrug.
"Haha, true!" he said with a chuckle. "I never thought I'd see you stoop down to my level though. Don't you have better things to do with your time instead of chasing the oracle's ass?"
She huffed but she knew better than to take the bait. She had no idea what he looked like under his armour but she figured he had a shit-eating grin under that stupid helmet of his. He was strangely expressive for somebody who refused to show any skin. In the time she's known him, Amaryllis had never seen Zahreen do anything that resembled living, he was just a walking suit of armour as far as anybody could prove.
"Hey, this might prove to be a good gig," Amaryllis said, tucking some of her hair behind her ear with a smile. "I might get more gold than I usually would from an assassination, while being able to tease the men here."
Zahreen was chuckling again. When he calmed down, he 'looked' straight at her. "But that's not all, is it? Would you have taken this job had it not been for the oracle? If it was the same group without the oracle, would you still be here? "
She huffed again, fidgeting with the amulet that she kept around her neck. She didn't want to admit anything to Zahreen but he would be gathering something from her answer or her lack of one. He was her ally for now but as it was with their world, an ally could quickly be your next target, or you theirs. She had to protect herself, knowing that when she was done with the oracle, she would have to jump back into that world with her relationship with Zahreen being unknown.
"Perhaps, perhaps not. I'm not concerned with what didn't happen."
"Is that right? It couldn't be that you were interested in what the oracle might say about your future, huh?"
"If I was interested in my future, I would have made him read me already. I'm surprised you even believe in that sort of thing."
Zahreen laughed. "I'm willing to admit it when there's something I can't quite explain, believe it or not. A lot of the bitches in Fraedia are sketchy as heck but this little guy seems different."
Amaryllis still had her amulet between her fingers, turning it over and over again as she processed what Zahreen said. It just seemed strange for him to admit that he didn't know everything because he sure acted like he did. All the time.
"But knowing that, maybe you'll give me your actual answer. Of course, I understand why you may not want to tell me but while we exist in the same world, we don't have the same role. You wouldn't accept a job to kill me because I know you only go for the fat, greedy bastards that deserve it. At the same time, I doubt you would employ a threat to my employers since Fraedian nobles defend themselves. I go along with merchants, mostly."
Still, she didn't trust him. She didn't trust anybody. She didn't even know why Zahreen was going through the trouble of explaining what may have been obvious. He wasn't being a total jerk to her, not that he ever seemed to be a jerk to her. There was something about her that he seemed amused by without needing to criticize her like she saw him criticizing the people who hired him. He didn't pick on her in the same way – he picked a little, in a curious sort of fashion.
Amaryllis settled on not saying anything. She fidgeted with her amulet a bit more before turning her back on him abruptly and turning away. Zahreen didn't say anything as she left.
Gerben knew it was against his better judgment to go seek out Caalya. He knew she was afraid of him. She couldn't do more than glance at him, she never directed her journal in a way where he could read, and whenever he glanced in her direction, she booked it or hid behind somebody. He usually stayed in his human form, he couldn't talk in his other form anyway, but that didn't seem to help her much. He considered himself to be a pretty patient person, eleven-year-old Igneous used to pull on his fur something nasty whenever he took him for rides, but only he could be so patient and so understand for so long.
She was outside of her tent, writing inside that book of hers. She noticed him immediately, since he towered over her. Their inherent height differences and their tendency to build their bodies through the constant strain of hauling weight around for the sake of culture was the only thing that really separated an ursurine in their human form and a regular human. He was just bigger and wore stone around his legs and arms for fun. He had a feeling that she wasn't so scared of his human form but the potential for him switch forms. Much like how usurines didn't look different from humans in their human form, usurines didn't look much different from the wild bears who couldn't transform.
To Caalya's credit, while she was obviously frightened and cowering, she didn't run or retreat back into her tent. From his angle and being close to her for once, he could finally see the terrible scarring around his neck, at least whatever wasn't covered by her armour. He had a feeling that it probably went around the shoulder too. He sat down on the ground, not only in an effort to keep himself as small as possible but he found that the stone bracers and greaves made it awkward for him to be on his knees or squatting for too long. He was just a little too top-heavy for such positions.
"Caalya," he said with a deep breath, trying to manage the calmest tone he could muster with all of the sudden tension. "Is there anything I can do to make you feel more at ease? I know you're scared of bears and all but..." he let that hang for a moment, unsure of where to steer the rest of the sentence.
She scribbled something out quickly and then gestured to the line he was supposed to read. Gerben's reading ability was, admittedly, not very good. It took longer for the letters to form something that held meaning and he had to say out loud in a whisper under his breath for the words to present themselves. Learn to read better, that would be a good start when trying to do anything with Caayla. His first instinct was to squint, even though he could see her writing perfectly fine. Thankfully, her writing was very neat, so none of his difficulties came from that.
I'm sorry, was all she wrote.
"You know I don't want to hurt you, right?"
Caalya merely nodded. He was beginning to wonder if she would ever feel at ease around him then. Maybe she had to make the first move, maybe it was useless for him to approach her about it. He stayed seated for a little while longer before deciding to give her the space she probably wanted. He felt awkward just getting up and leaving but Gerben just didn't know what to say or do. He never had somebody be so completely terrified of him. Even little human children were fine with him, despite the fact that they came up to his knees sometimes.
Then again, they've probably never been hurt by a bear of any kind before.
He glanced back at Caayla. She looked remarkably sad. Maybe being so afraid of him bothered her too.
Igneous was a little surprised when Iniabi suddenly insisted on that lesson again. He shoved that fire tome into his hands and then all but dragged him back to his tent. He wasn't ill but he wasn't quite feeling the lesson either but Igneous supposed that he didn't get as much say in the matter. He asked Iniabi for help, it should be at his convenience.
"I just didn't want you to fall so behind that we're back at square one," Iniabi stated as soon as they entered in his tent. "It's handy that you knew the translation right away but you still need to work on your pronunciation."
"I see..." he mumbled, bringing the tome back up closer to his face. He could still read it as though it was written in the language that he was taught, it was an instant translation in his mind. He read it out loud again but he didn't get very far before Iniabi stopped him, pointing out a syllable that should have been hard instead of soft. That was the hardest part – remembering just how the words are pronounced. With the common language, he just knew. He heard the words so often that he just knew.
With the language presented in the tomes, he just didn't know. He didn't hear people chanting very often and when he could, it wasn't so close that he could understand it. He only realized he understood it when he began reading it so he didn't pay attention to what magic users were saying, just that the were saying it and he envied people who could do it. He wished he paid attention to it more.
"Do you have more than one of the same tome?" Igneous asked. "If you could read it out loud and I could follow it..."
Iniabi stopped for a moment and began digging through his tomes but unfortunately, none of them were the same. "I'll go see if Caalya has any. She should have something on her..." He left the tent quickly, before Igneous really had the time to process that he was gone. However, much like how he was quick to disappear, he was quick to reappear with a simple wind book. He gave that one to Igneous while he dug one out for himself.
"I usually don't use wind tomes, or the simple tomes for that matter," he stated, as he dug his out. "But I keep it just in case I need a simple spell." He didn't give Igneous room to respond. He merely opened the tome to the first page, making Igneous do the same thing, and just began to read it out loud. Igneous followed along, trying to keep a mental note of where the trouble syllables where and just how and when they were used. He wasn't sure if writing in a tome ruined its effectiveness but even if it didn't, it was still wasn't his tome. It was Caayla's.
Thankfully, Iniabi took it upon himself to repeat the same spell more than once, letting Igneous get a better sense of just how the language flowed. The more he paid attention, the more he liked the way it sounded. It was a beautiful language. Iniabi repeated the spell one last time and then set the book down.
"Did that help?"
"A lot, I think," he answered with a nod. "This... doesn't bother you, right?"
"What do you mean by 'this'?"
"Well, just that you're taking the time to help me and that you have to repeat yourself so often for me to get something."
Iniabi merely smiled. "Everybody needs a teacher, Igneous. It's natural to learn from somebody who knows more about something than you do. I had to be taught magic. As for the repetition, well that's just part of teaching. Not everybody understands everything on their first try. I'm honestly fine with it, it's not a waste of time for me. I'm happy to help people out." He had the gentlest of smiles. Igneous didn't know why he was so eager to help people out but Iniabi seemed genuine.
Igneous merely nodded, he didn't know how to respond in any other way. Even though the people at the temple said the same sorts of things when he was learning to read and write, there was still a part of him that struggled with that. He know that he was a burden to the adults in the village he and Saikur grew up in. They made it clear that they were frustrated with just how slow he was sometimes and the fact that he was only slow with some things didn't ease their frustrations.
Sometimes, their attitude made him wonder why they bothered to raise them at all. It wasn't like he was related to any of them.
"I don't know what's on your mind right now but... I'm sure everything will turn out. I have a feeling you'll be an amazing mage one day, and I'll be with you every step of the way until you become that mage."
"Thank you," Igneous said with a smile.
So this how I wanted support chapters to originally go - three at a time. I left labels out for now but if people need to know what support level the characters are at, then let me and I'll add them all in.
I also believe these were all suggested, so don't be afraid to suggest people you would like to see talk some more.
And for once, Zahreen isn't a complete jerk to somebody. Imagine that.