Diatre - Apprentice Bard
Try this, be here, consume that. Always on, always moving, always processing the now. Do this task, have these thoughts, never give yourself time to empathise, to salvage an idea of your own, just react react react.
In the time before, the Human once known as Assistant Diatre, was nothing more than an anxiety ridden drone, her mind always abuzz with the endless stream of ‘latest news’, always feeling her next rush of emotion drowned out by her last.
So when she was dragged to Levis, to this tiny riverside town that grow trees for sapping, something starts to happen to Diatre – she starts to feel. Admittedly the first feeling she is able to settle on is hot, maybe sticky, as the sun beat down on skin not made for or used to all that radiation. The two suns confused her, but they mattered less than feeling like she was baking out of her skin. Down to the river was the first independent thought she had – ducking her body as much as she could under the water to cool down. But as anyone can tell you – that’s not a long term solution.
Mud was her next attempt, caking her body in as much as she could while she got her bearings. But that came with both the problem of attracting stinging flying insects, and that the mud would crack after a while of standing out of the river. Still, despite the itching, by the time night falls the covered parts are less red and angry than the uncovered skin. Her stomach was grumbling by ‘nightfall’, one of the suns dipping below the horizon and leaving everything awash in pink, and she was hungry and the water she had sampled from the river was leaving her queasy.
And that could have been the end of her, shivering in the not quite dark, puking up her empty stomach, alone in this alien land – but the magic of the land provides, in this case a travelling bard, a collector of stories and song who was moving between towns and came across her shivering huddling form. Deciding on an immediate and final stop for the night, the tall troll Sen’thal had pulled a giant heat blanket from his pack, laying it over her as he began tracing out the circuit for warmth – planning to power it with the drain of his own magic to keep her alive.
She had spent a whole moment to consider what this large creature-person was before her gut pain took her again, the implants behind her eyes screaming of something called dysentery, though what little from the web is stored inside her claims that takes a few days to present… and then the web catches up with her predicament and goes blank.
“Thankyou” She rasps, though the man stares at her with a blank sensation. Still – it is he that feeds her, he who shows her worldlessly how to purify river water for her drinking, and he who instructs her on how to cover her skin in green paste so that they can approach the town safely for help with her stomach problems.
Sen’thal stays with her, singing to her in that weird language, using what little processing power she has in the implants in her brain to start to store things her human memory refuses to focus on. Like the rudimentary signs he uses with her, using sense and context to try and keep up with this gentle brute of a man. His tusks scare her, and she is sure he is using his intimidating stares to make the smaller humanoids with the big ears help her and ignore that she is not like them, but she sticks to his side over the next few days – at least until she gets enough confidence to offer to help out in one of the gardens that litter the town.
Diatre does not lead the day’s gardening, following this young couple’s instructions on what to bring water, and what to tend to and what to gently pluck but soil gets under her nails and her back aches in the good way, and her thoughts are allowed to just be, wandering over every marvel she has experienced in the last week and a bit as her body healed and got used to this too bright and too quiet world.
She had learned that skincare was important around here, as was water care – the care not to waste what they have for what may be. The third day after joining the community they had shown her a sand bath, a tub filled with a special fine grit that you rubbed over skin to remove dead skin, much different than the pressure sprays of home, but better in that it allowed her time with her thoughts where the pressure spray was in and done and rush and rush and…. And the town seemed to pointedly ignore when grey skin was exposed from the green, indeed a week in some of the locals were soon passing her small pots of replacement paint, pointers to borrowed no traded items and how to let her sink into the community of this place as one of their own.
By the time Sen’thal was done with this town, what she feels must have been three score days, Diatre does not know if she feels more connection with the troll bard, or this group of wonderful people. What little signs she’s worked out with them though, seems to indicate that she might be safer with Sen’thal for now. On the road and away from ‘hunters’ though she’s still a little unsure on that sign.
The next town she pretends she is mute, her voice damaged by something and her head constantly under large hoods and hats that she has begun collecting in her own rucksack, learning how to keep the beat on little castanet type devices that she fastens to her fingers. The little things listeners trade to the pair of them after their songs seems to be enough to trade again to get the things they need. She enjoys most meals, but some make her sick and some Sen’thal stops her from eating as if he is building up a list of ingredients she cannot have.
It is in the third town where they do more river bathing, and less sand baths, the water running clearer here, and the pink petals able to hide Diatre as she lets herself sink into the water in relaxation this time, Sen’thal staying close to her and letting her rub and clean delicately all the fungi that grows around his shoulders and back, checking with him constantly that she’s doing ok. He teases her that all things grow again unless you really kill them, and he is hardy. She likes the symbol for hardy – it reminds her of the symbol for his name.
In the fourth town she tries humming, knowing a few of his songs now, and when she is sure much mead has been passed around and she can blame it on mead-visions, she tries to hum along to one of her favourites, giving a pleased smile when no one reacts badly, but she can tell Sen’Thal has noticed and after he passes her a glass of mead and just sits with her and hums a few bars as he pats thick hands through her hair. It is here that she finds out his symbol for her is the possessive ‘pain’. She is not offended.
Diatre stops counting after the fifth, by his side by choice still mostly mute – her voice ‘damaged’ in a fire, hence all the makeup, and soon brave enough to rasp out the few words she’s learnt when it is critical to be known now and not as soon as they can see her hands.
She becomes Sen’thal’s instruments, picking up the Verim Water Bag, and shying away from the fuzzylyre – her hair brittle from all the paints her disguise coats through the locks that were a black she hasn’t seen in the Foliad she pretends to be. She’s realised how lucky she was to be born with green eyes, and no one notices her optical implants unless she stares them in the eyes and she is so very good at acting coy.
<Are you paying attention?> Sen’thal signs at her one day she is particularly zoned out, eyes half-closed and feeling the hot dry season sun on her face. The movement clues her in that she should turn to look at him.
<I am present> She signs back, tilting her head and regarding him as these moments of meditation and self-centredness. He has been playing his fingers over a spread map in the room they have borrowed of this town, a small backwater thing nearly halfway into the forest. She can tell it is dying a natural death, the people of the town aging out and most of the young folk moving on with partners to communities that suit them. Not everything is to last forever.
<I think we might find our own town soon – your signing is flawless now, and your transition is good enough to fool even those I used to trade for silence. Plus the travel is getting rough on my knees.>
<We could go to a town with an Apothecary for knee ointment. I’m sure they’d have something for your sore knees.> Leaning over she’d playfully kiss each of his knees, frowning at the rough skin on her lips, but much to into teasing her constant companion than to keep care on her delicate little lips. Except they are not the delicate of the never seen sun, and her skin has a touch of saturation and roughness to it now when the paint starts to slip. Levis is so good for her and so is her time with Sen’thal.
<You are right, we should stop.> Diatre values him more than she values the freedom travel with him has brought. The mention of his knees and the thoughts of how she has changed over the years lets her see the age in his hair, in his posture and she gets the feeling she might have to ask one of the elders of the town how long Trolls live to. She doesn’t want to, but he brought her into this world and she will not leave him if he is aging into old age.
<You are a good tutored> Sen’thal says, moving her whole body as he ruffles her hair, the static with her hood making her implants zap, though many of them are useless now apart from the metal that laces her body.
<And you are a good teacher.> As Diatre points to the place on the map where she thinks they should settle for the moment, her mind is calm, maybe at most thinking of a song she can sing to Sen’thal when the time comes to trade for a home.
So when she was dragged to Levis, to this tiny riverside town that grow trees for sapping, something starts to happen to Diatre – she starts to feel. Admittedly the first feeling she is able to settle on is hot, maybe sticky, as the sun beat down on skin not made for or used to all that radiation. The two suns confused her, but they mattered less than feeling like she was baking out of her skin. Down to the river was the first independent thought she had – ducking her body as much as she could under the water to cool down. But as anyone can tell you – that’s not a long term solution.
Mud was her next attempt, caking her body in as much as she could while she got her bearings. But that came with both the problem of attracting stinging flying insects, and that the mud would crack after a while of standing out of the river. Still, despite the itching, by the time night falls the covered parts are less red and angry than the uncovered skin. Her stomach was grumbling by ‘nightfall’, one of the suns dipping below the horizon and leaving everything awash in pink, and she was hungry and the water she had sampled from the river was leaving her queasy.
And that could have been the end of her, shivering in the not quite dark, puking up her empty stomach, alone in this alien land – but the magic of the land provides, in this case a travelling bard, a collector of stories and song who was moving between towns and came across her shivering huddling form. Deciding on an immediate and final stop for the night, the tall troll Sen’thal had pulled a giant heat blanket from his pack, laying it over her as he began tracing out the circuit for warmth – planning to power it with the drain of his own magic to keep her alive.
She had spent a whole moment to consider what this large creature-person was before her gut pain took her again, the implants behind her eyes screaming of something called dysentery, though what little from the web is stored inside her claims that takes a few days to present… and then the web catches up with her predicament and goes blank.
“Thankyou” She rasps, though the man stares at her with a blank sensation. Still – it is he that feeds her, he who shows her worldlessly how to purify river water for her drinking, and he who instructs her on how to cover her skin in green paste so that they can approach the town safely for help with her stomach problems.
Sen’thal stays with her, singing to her in that weird language, using what little processing power she has in the implants in her brain to start to store things her human memory refuses to focus on. Like the rudimentary signs he uses with her, using sense and context to try and keep up with this gentle brute of a man. His tusks scare her, and she is sure he is using his intimidating stares to make the smaller humanoids with the big ears help her and ignore that she is not like them, but she sticks to his side over the next few days – at least until she gets enough confidence to offer to help out in one of the gardens that litter the town.
Diatre does not lead the day’s gardening, following this young couple’s instructions on what to bring water, and what to tend to and what to gently pluck but soil gets under her nails and her back aches in the good way, and her thoughts are allowed to just be, wandering over every marvel she has experienced in the last week and a bit as her body healed and got used to this too bright and too quiet world.
She had learned that skincare was important around here, as was water care – the care not to waste what they have for what may be. The third day after joining the community they had shown her a sand bath, a tub filled with a special fine grit that you rubbed over skin to remove dead skin, much different than the pressure sprays of home, but better in that it allowed her time with her thoughts where the pressure spray was in and done and rush and rush and…. And the town seemed to pointedly ignore when grey skin was exposed from the green, indeed a week in some of the locals were soon passing her small pots of replacement paint, pointers to borrowed no traded items and how to let her sink into the community of this place as one of their own.
By the time Sen’thal was done with this town, what she feels must have been three score days, Diatre does not know if she feels more connection with the troll bard, or this group of wonderful people. What little signs she’s worked out with them though, seems to indicate that she might be safer with Sen’thal for now. On the road and away from ‘hunters’ though she’s still a little unsure on that sign.
The next town she pretends she is mute, her voice damaged by something and her head constantly under large hoods and hats that she has begun collecting in her own rucksack, learning how to keep the beat on little castanet type devices that she fastens to her fingers. The little things listeners trade to the pair of them after their songs seems to be enough to trade again to get the things they need. She enjoys most meals, but some make her sick and some Sen’thal stops her from eating as if he is building up a list of ingredients she cannot have.
It is in the third town where they do more river bathing, and less sand baths, the water running clearer here, and the pink petals able to hide Diatre as she lets herself sink into the water in relaxation this time, Sen’thal staying close to her and letting her rub and clean delicately all the fungi that grows around his shoulders and back, checking with him constantly that she’s doing ok. He teases her that all things grow again unless you really kill them, and he is hardy. She likes the symbol for hardy – it reminds her of the symbol for his name.
In the fourth town she tries humming, knowing a few of his songs now, and when she is sure much mead has been passed around and she can blame it on mead-visions, she tries to hum along to one of her favourites, giving a pleased smile when no one reacts badly, but she can tell Sen’Thal has noticed and after he passes her a glass of mead and just sits with her and hums a few bars as he pats thick hands through her hair. It is here that she finds out his symbol for her is the possessive ‘pain’. She is not offended.
Diatre stops counting after the fifth, by his side by choice still mostly mute – her voice ‘damaged’ in a fire, hence all the makeup, and soon brave enough to rasp out the few words she’s learnt when it is critical to be known now and not as soon as they can see her hands.
She becomes Sen’thal’s instruments, picking up the Verim Water Bag, and shying away from the fuzzylyre – her hair brittle from all the paints her disguise coats through the locks that were a black she hasn’t seen in the Foliad she pretends to be. She’s realised how lucky she was to be born with green eyes, and no one notices her optical implants unless she stares them in the eyes and she is so very good at acting coy.
<Are you paying attention?> Sen’thal signs at her one day she is particularly zoned out, eyes half-closed and feeling the hot dry season sun on her face. The movement clues her in that she should turn to look at him.
<I am present> She signs back, tilting her head and regarding him as these moments of meditation and self-centredness. He has been playing his fingers over a spread map in the room they have borrowed of this town, a small backwater thing nearly halfway into the forest. She can tell it is dying a natural death, the people of the town aging out and most of the young folk moving on with partners to communities that suit them. Not everything is to last forever.
<I think we might find our own town soon – your signing is flawless now, and your transition is good enough to fool even those I used to trade for silence. Plus the travel is getting rough on my knees.>
<We could go to a town with an Apothecary for knee ointment. I’m sure they’d have something for your sore knees.> Leaning over she’d playfully kiss each of his knees, frowning at the rough skin on her lips, but much to into teasing her constant companion than to keep care on her delicate little lips. Except they are not the delicate of the never seen sun, and her skin has a touch of saturation and roughness to it now when the paint starts to slip. Levis is so good for her and so is her time with Sen’thal.
<You are right, we should stop.> Diatre values him more than she values the freedom travel with him has brought. The mention of his knees and the thoughts of how she has changed over the years lets her see the age in his hair, in his posture and she gets the feeling she might have to ask one of the elders of the town how long Trolls live to. She doesn’t want to, but he brought her into this world and she will not leave him if he is aging into old age.
<You are a good tutored> Sen’thal says, moving her whole body as he ruffles her hair, the static with her hood making her implants zap, though many of them are useless now apart from the metal that laces her body.
<And you are a good teacher.> As Diatre points to the place on the map where she thinks they should settle for the moment, her mind is calm, maybe at most thinking of a song she can sing to Sen’thal when the time comes to trade for a home.
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