To PegasusPilot: Thanks much for reading and leaving a review! I'm pleased that you like Anna and my idea of Radek.
Last time: Radek's sick (since chapter 30), so Anna got to go offworld on a trading excursion with some Athosians.
Chapter 37. A Deal.
Morning on Delbradia coincided with Atlantis's night. Anna had never considered it before, but the Delbradians seemed to have been having breakfast while she was having her dinner only a few hours ago. She looked around at the bright morning sun, the people bustling to and fro with their wares, shouting to one another and getting out of the way of the strangers dressed in heavy green and carrying weapons.
Iskaan, thankfully, kept close. He had a sack of furs and other things on his back. Anna had her own small box of jewelry. Mostly bracelets and necklaces, including Teyla's bone necklace. Anna kept three necklaces, just in case she had something fancy to do someday on Atlantis.
It was all so new, yet so familiar. It was like a historical enactment of the middle ages, except brighter than she imagined. The main road of this village was laid with yellow pavers, with brick buildings on either side. The market, however, was mostly open air. The shop keepers set up their things outside underneath tarps and awnings.
"These people are all from different planets?" Anna asked Iskaan, raising her voice to be heard over the din.
"Yes, a lot of them," he answered with a smile. "Isn't it something?"
Anna nodded in wonder. One man beckoned to her, gesturing at beautiful dresses he had hanging around him on ropes. A woman held a long necklace of opalescent beads out to show her. Most of the traders had fur, tools, food, and dozens of other things that Anna didn't recognize. An older boy went chasing two small children through the crowd, shouting at them to come back.
Iskaan laughed and put his hand on her shoulder to get her attention. Anna spun to see him motioning for her to follow him down a side street.
They reached the destination, apparently, since Rhetto and the other Athosians ducked through a doorway. Only Iskaan hung back with Anna and Major Rutherford's team.
"This is where we'll be staying," Major Rutherford said to her. He pointed up at a sign. There were strange runes carved into the wood, along with a picture of what looked like a pig sitting in front of a house. "The Porker and the Palace."
Major Rutherford's team laughed. Except Doctor Kavanagh. He wrinkled his nose in distaste.
"It's actually called the Dog's Den," Iskaan offered with a chuckle. "After you, Anna."
Anna held her breath and stepped inside. It was dark, lit by candles, and it smelled like alcohol and charred meat. She immediately understood that the Dog's Den was an inn/tavern, and it seemed to be in a nice location despite its name. Only a few people milled about the space inside, blinking bleary eyes as the door let in the early morning light. She imagined it would fill come evening.
Rhetto and the Athosians arranged for three rooms for them, with Anna sharing a room with Rhetto, another woman, and Iskaan. The remaining three Athosians would have a separate room, while Major Rutherford and his team would have the third. Iskaan said they would sleep in the afternoon, when many traders took a break from the heat of the day, and then continue trading in the evening.
Doctor Kavanagh went into the team's room and didn't come back out.
Anna knelt on the floor with her sleeping bag—it was more like a rug, but she didn't complain. She asked for this specifically, hadn't she? Besides, it was only for a few days. Their room had a window, putting a large square of yellow sunlight on the wood floor.
"Can I show you the market?" Iskaan said. He sat down next to her.
Anna nodded. "But, don't you have a booth or something?" She didn't know how it worked.
He shook his head. "Oh, no. We have a standing deal with a few traders, but we visit the other traders and see what they have and do our own bargaining." He pulled a set of three panpipes from his vest. "You brought things to trade?"
Anna got her small box of jewelry from her backpack and opened it for Iskaan.
He stared inside, and smiled at her. "You will have almost anything you want here with these."
Anna looked at it. It was just costume jewelry… "I don't know," she said. "It's not real."
"What do you mean?" Iskaan lifted a necklace with an imitation sapphire from the box and held it up in front of the window. A spot of blue light danced on the floor between them. "It isn't real?"
Anna never considered that a strange concept until now. On the other hand, she expected some people to wonder whether the bones in Teyla's necklace were actual Wraith bones or from something else. "Never mind…"
Iskaan put the necklace back. "Let's go." He glanced toward Rhetto. "We're going to the markets, Father."
Rhetto nodded him away.
Iskaan took Anna's hand in his and nearly dragged her into the hallway. He cantered down the stairs and out into the sunlight once more. Anna kept up as he weaved his way through the crowds, but kept hold of his hand anyway. There were many opportunities to get lost here…
Iskaan paused in front of the dress stall. "Stop me if you see anything you like," he said.
Anna shrugged and looked at the dress. It looked like some things Teyla wore when she was going to visit her people or going out to trade. Anna couldn't imagine her whole little box of necklaces would trade for even one. "What were you looking for?" she asked.
"A hunting knife," Iskaan answered with a grin. "I saw Karrin on my way in. She has the best knives and she was admiring my panpipes last time we came…" His voice trailed off as he pulled her back through the crowd.
He stopped again, this time in front of a little stall with shining knives arranged on the table. A young girl, maybe a little older than Anna, leaned on the table while she showed an old man a knife.
Anna squinted at the knives, and then at the girl. The knives were, for lack of a better word, beautiful. They were shining, with the hilts decorated and wrapped in fabric of all colors. The girl was… not.
She was by no means ugly. She was just dirty. Her face was smudged in black and her hair was pulled back and underneath a floppy cap. Her hands were rough and blackened with soot, but that made her knives look even brighter. She finished up her conversation with the man. He walked away without a knife.
She smiled at Iskaan. "He'll be back."
"I don't doubt it," Iskaan said. He approached the table, pulling Anna along behind him. "This is Karrin, Anna. Karrin, this is Anna. She is a traveler from a very far-away planet. I wanted to show her the knives of the best knife-smith to ever visit Delbradia."
Anna wished she had a more interesting cover-story, since Atlantis was supposed to be considered destroyed. "Nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you, too," Karrin answered. "Do you like knives?"
Anna shrugged. She didn't have an opinion on knives. But she probably shouldn't say that to the best knife-smith to ever visit Delbradia. "I know someone who likes knives very much." Maybe she should get Ronon one. He had at least twenty. Anna thought she saw one hidden in his hair once.
Karrin smiled at her polite answer. "You keep threatening to buy one," she said to Iskaan.
"I brought something to trade this time," he said. He pulled out his collection of panpipes. They ranged in size from as small as Iskaan's palm to as large as his head. They were each a different color and tied securely with twine. Anna imagined he made them himself. "I suspect I'll be able to trade one of these for something to your liking."
Karrin looked at the panpipes sideways. "Probably." She looked at her display. "What sort of knife catches the eye of a piper, I wonder?"
Iskaan grinned and picked out a small knife that looked more like a very sharp letter opener to Anna. The hilt was smooth and plain in comparison, the grip wrapped in soft-looking leather.
"Simple," she said with a nod of approval. "But functional."
"I'm a piper," Iskaan said. "But I'm also a hunter." He nudged Anna with his shoulder. "Which knife do you like?"
Anna was drawn to the more decorative knives. She wouldn't use a knife for anything but decoration, she guessed. Wait, just a moment… Her eye caught on a set of knives without hilts, in the shape of a triangle with a fatal point. She pointed.
"Do you have many throwing knives?" she asked.
Karrin gave her a look of surprise, eyebrows raised and an amused kink to her lips. "I have several." She proceeded to point out her throwing knives. Each set had three matching knives. Some of them were fancier than others, larger or smaller. "Do you throw knives?"
"Not yet," Anna said. "But I had someone offer to teach me how." She looked between the different sets. Besides the aesthetic differences, they all looked the same to her. "And I don't have any."
"Well, mine are balanced," Karrin said. "The heavier ones fly straighter but are harder to throw. The lighter ones are easy to throw, but hard to stick."
That seemed simple… Anna pointed at one group. "May I?" When Karrin nodded, she picked it up. Like Karrin's other knives, these were buffed and polished to a sparkling shine. It had no hilt. The blade was curved and it felt heavier than she was expecting.
"You like that one?" Karrin asked. She picked up one of the other knives from the same set and hurled it behind her toward the wall. Anna watched, shocked. But the knife stuck in the wooden window frame. "As you can see, it throws nicely. It's one of the heavier knives, though."
Anna nodded. She supposed she would learn eventually. She opened her box and showed the contents to Karrin. She wasn't sure if Karrin would be interested in jewelry, though…
"These are some nice pieces," she said. Then she paused and cleared away the pretty necklaces to see the one at the bottom: Teyla's bone necklace. "What is this?"
"That's a Wraith-bone necklace," Anna said. "I was told it would fetch a fine price." She glanced at Iskaan's wide eyes.
Anna didn't consider that most people around here didn't face a Wraith and live to talk about it. Given what she knew about Wraith, many of them might not even know what a Wraith looked like until they were about to be eaten. Only Wraith darts.
"Yes," Karrin said softly. "A fine price." Anna could tell by the way she looked at it that she wanted it pretty badly. It looked like just her kind of jewelry.
"Would that be nice enough to trade for this set and for the knife Iskaan wants?" Anna asked. She looked at the array of knives before her. She didn't know how to judge the value of one item against another so different. "And one other…" Anna added. Better get a knife for Ronon, too. She was here.
She wasn't sure how he'd react to a gift…
"Which one?" Karrin gestured over the table, indicating that she could pick anything she wanted.
Anna looked at Iskaan. "I'd like to get a gift for one of my friends back—back home," she said. "Which do you think?" She wanted to ask him which one he thought would be the best for disemboweling a Wraith, but that seemed inappropriate.
Iskaan picked out a wicked-looking knife with a wide, bent blade. It looked like half a boomerang and the rest of it was a knife. It looked like it could disembowel a Wraith. Anna nodded to Karrin that was the one she wanted.
Karrin nodded and handed her the three throwing knives and Iskaan's knife. She put her necklace around her neck. "Thank you for your business."
Anna smiled and looked at Iskaan. "I didn't know Wraith-bone necklaces were so expensive."
"I've only seen two," Iskaan said. "Teyla had one, but I haven't seen her wear it in a long time." He handed her the boomerang knife. "I'm sure your friend will like it."
A/N: Ehhh sorry. This is the only chapter where it's solely OCs for, um, a really long time. I'm not gonna promise that it'll never happen again, but it's not gonna happen again for a long, long time. We'll put it that way.
Next time: Some days, you're just not where you wish you were.