Finishing up with the handling of the juperse, I step away from the animal's caretakers to leave them to it. Some other riders still here keep looking at me, and I want to assume they're gladdened by my departure. Though I have to wonder why they are here. Unless not everyone came out in force a few days back?

"Whatever, I suppose." I speak, letting my lingering thoughts out as I walk. Boots strike the ground behind me, quickly and quicker still. Turning to face the source, Neeameth fills the reflection of my lenses. She skids to a halt, smile on her face, her body relatively unburdened by equipment. She offers a wave and I glance back towards my mount of the past week or something.

"So, your captain mentioned earlier that you kill off the oldest ones. Or, at least, that seems to be what he implied. He seemed inclined to believe the one I rode would die on the journey. Do you perhaps offer them up? The juperse clearly has time left in them yet is still believed to be at their end." I ask her.

"Not that I am aware of. Why?" she questions, her mouth muttering as she collects the information. Her head turns elsewhere, towards where healthier, younger ones are. Some workers patiently move other juperses about, the springy creatures causing problems still well within their worth. Neeameth scoffs quietly and I turn after her.

"As I am leaving at some point in the near future, I think one would help. I won't have to carry everyone and everything. It would also help it get a death in service, I guess." I explain, recalling the rituals that will apparently happen when a juperse dies. Sounds like dying as an aid would be better than being slaughtered out of sight.

"That makes sense. Would you like me to ask Mounted-Captain Henipiotch if that is possible?" she offers and I begin nodding.

"It would be muchly appreciated." I say, thanking her and ending the nods.

"But, he won't be here for a while... So, drink?" she asks, her huff leading into a grin. I let the huff pass onto me and I change my head motions into shakes.

"I'll keep you company for a little bit, sure." I answer, keeping her at my side as we walk the fancy part of the town. I mind the fine and polished architecture and let it stew in my mind. When I get home, will I be able to use this information? Is there anything here so unlike back in Tobaballe that it would simply be truly inspired?

"Great! Wonderful. What do you want, then? If we don't have anything at the chapterhouse, we can just go to one of the other places in town." she goes on, clearly having missed or ignored my head motions.

"Don't worry about me. I won't be having anything." I tell her, louder than usual. With my osibindah body so in mind, it will not be safe for me in any circumstance to go out and have a drink. Much less one so public.

"Seriously? You can have anything, you don't have to worry about it," she insists, what rattling there is on her person proving itself to be a purse.

"It's fine, just get yourself something. And I will speak to you for a little bit. Assuming Rose-sweerui doesn't find us. In which case, I'll be off." I explain, hoping that Rose-sweerui will, in fact, be driven to the kind of desperation that will drag her out to drag me in. That desire within her to have me see her surprise. Oh, gods above, please... Please not let her be disciplined with this kind of thing, let her impatience rise higher than the mountains.

"You love her that much?" Neeameth asks, her steps lingering tightly together as her face loses its lustre. Noting the lack of a companion at my side, I turn around to face them.

"Love?" I repeat quietly, my prior desires stiff-spining me with caution.

"Yeah... Do you love her so much that you'd abandon people for her?" Neeameth asks in a strangely awful way. That choice of language can be taken so many ways from the seed of its dictionary birth.

I close the distance between us to ensure a low voice, "No. No, she may say it a lot to me. But... I cannot say I return the same feelings. Not honestly."

"That is certainly a surprise." Neeameth goes, her eyes widening, her lips curling a little up.

"Hm?" I go, turning back the way we were heading as a bounce returns to her steps.

"Well, with most people that I have met. Especially my fellow valley-riders are very quick to move on to an aelenvar. Most certainly the ones that they have caught the eye of. Easy as some might be under their thick leathers."

"Sounds more like they are just in it for the emotionally cheap sex." I want to sneer, some of Rose-sweerui's thoughts on the matter rubbing off on me. Or, maybe it's my own thoughts on the matter. It doesn't really mean much either way. Much as I don't want Rose-sweerui to be so blunt with me in manners of sex...

She's been quite open with me. When we arrived in this town, when Henipiotch first caught her in his gaze... There's been a distinct lack of comfort with Rose-sweerui. Despite her attitude, despite her choice of attire and intimate knowledge of posture and movement. Casual, heartless sex is a sin for the aelenvari, an evil of great power.

For all their power, mortalkind has one triumph over the divine. The ability to have a family, the weight a child makes in a mother's belly. Though Motrtha is the Goddess of Mothers, though she has an elder brother in Thurnmourer. A father in Kyarverin. Younger siblings of both kinds in all the others... She'll never be a mother, not without mortal involvement. So I have so fantastically learned in my time as a wandering soul.

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Sex is not for pleasure, sex is not for desire. It is for love, childbirth. The aelenvari cannot afford it to be any other way. For all of Rose-sweerui's sultry visual aspects. She is an innocently sweet thing at heart, much as her namesake distilled into water and perfume.

Spotting a low, speckled stone wall that can fill in for a bench, I sit down on it. My thoughts weigh heavily upon me and I feel increasingly tired, thinking more about them. So many different things, so many things recently learned and committed to memory. I know not what will remain and what I will throw away, I really do not.

Clicking my tongue, I hide what I can under my cloak as Neeameth goes down at my side. Oh, how I could enjoy this breeze and the well-kept flowers behind me if I wasn't a bug. But, being in a form where I cannot truly rest until I am in private is... Something. It is really something.

"I suppose it might seem that way. But many do end up sticking with the aelenvari they have 'found' once a baby is on the way. Regardless of how difficult some might be, we all walk to the temples. The aelenvar they've gifted a child to will most certainly have sought Motrtha's blessing by that point."

"Yeah, well, no baby is going to keep me with Rose. Once we reach the point where she can't come along, that is going to be it." I answer quickly, not giving my words much thought before they came out. Though, who knows, really? The day I give her a child will either be the day I am not myself or the day I do really end up loving her.

"A very cold way of looking at it, but I wouldn't be surprised if you changed your mind," she comments, her eyes surveying all that the open stores have to offer. Her purse bounces up and down like a ball, yet she cannot find the energy to move. She's not thirsty, that much is clear. She wants an excuse to spend time with me.

"Mmmm." rumbles out of my quiet-in-the-right-ways mouth.

"It's a lonely world out there, Nin. You are a fool for not taking full advantage of what she offers." Neeameth tells me in a tone that is lost to me as her words linger in my head.

It is lonely, yes. I've seen firsthand and am living a life of true loneliness right now. Through no fault of my own, knowing fault at best. I am alone.

I am far from my home and far away from those who understand the mind I have been raised into having. Those who might comfort me and hold me close have all had to give something up to be with me. In time, they'll all go. Rose-sweerui will soon wander back to her flower, Einervaene will go home and I will find myself up on maybe a mountain. A world so empty and full at the same time staring at me from all angles.

Snow will crunch under my feet, and moss will stain my bandages. The fires I will huddle around will have only one body blocking their heated expansion. That is the future that awaits me if I do not do something to prevent it. Yet...

"I am not interested in exploiting someone's emotions." I let out, not sure of what I really want. Being alone is not new to me. This loneliness, however, I do not know how to handle it.

"But you wouldn't be exploiting her. She is willingly giving herself to you and will try much to make it work. Aelenvari are not humans. Remember that. Love for them is not as in depth as what we might call it." she says, interrupting my dark thoughts before they make me turn too inwards. I am silently thankful for her obnoxiousness in this regard.

"And that is the problem, Neeameth. For me, it would not be love, it would just be a means to be lustful." I tell her, pointing out the crux of the problem as this distinct difference in philosophy and biology. It will only be exploitation, in my view.

She laughs loud and clear, "Never took you for a romantic. Fine dining and quiet walks under one of the moons high in the mountains. Blades of grass in hands' reach, snow under your toes as you brave the snow-belt for a view to die for. Oh, a girl such as me can still think of so many cute ideas."

I sigh long and tiringly, resting my head on an open palm and driving my elbow into my leg, "I do not know what I would call myself. If I am a romantic, I do not know. I just do not like the idea of a fickle relationship. Though she keeps saying it, I've not done anything to truly earn her love. We've not spent years together as friends. No hardships have really happened to bring us close and lay it bare that we will be there for each other..."

My voice slows itself into quiet. Am I being honest with myself?

"Did you not keep her safe from a sadroobell?"

"She was calling me her 'precious love' before that for most of the time I've known her. From my perspective, it's only been a handful of months. Maybe not even two. I've lost track of time since leaving home. For a while now, really. One day, I woke up in her flower and she simply came onto me, physically affectionate from the get go. Then, after a tourney, she started saying she loved me."

Neeameth perks up at my description, "So... You didn't find yourself sheathed in any particular way? You are technically free despite the aelenvar you are with?"

I ignore her first question even as a steam fogs my lenses at the mere image of Rose-sweerui's soft lips-

"I guess, not that it really matters." I answer, frowning my thoughts back to some normality. Though the glint in Neeameth's eyes does not escape me.

"Well, of course it does! You are travelling all around the continent. You are going to -need- companions." Neeameth points out and suggests. Unfortunately for her, I already have an option for the plurality of 'companion.'

"For now, Rose-sweerui will do. I have someone else in mind, but her mind isn't made up, I don't think." I say, thinking of Einervaene and the uncertainty of her position. Yet, despite my efforts, the lack of a spoken name seems to have given a wrongful impression.

"Perhaps me, then? I know the land quite well when it comes to being within the lands owned by Founding-Lord Brewbrt. And, I'd be able to supply you with juperses! As I am in a position to abuse my priority-serving status as a valley-rider when it comes to buying animals." she explains, her talk of position exploitation driving her to mad laughter.

"I'll think about it." I say, thinking back to what we talked about at the start of this recent reunion. I hope she hasn't forgotten about my interest in acquiring an animal for help with the cargo and transportation. Though, I think my hinted at refusal of her offer has gone completely wayward as well.

All this talk of lust and romance and all... Neeameth's eyes on me are only because of my height. Even now, she makes it clear her attraction is base and possibly only reinforced by our recent interactions because she wants them to be. She keeps looking up and up, measuring the distance between my head and hers. If I ever brought her along as well, it would not settle well with Rose-sweerui.

The two would be in perpetual battle with each other over my attention.

"Well, just remember I am here to help if you need it-" Neeameth begins to let out and my rise to my feet interrupts her.

"I'll bear it in mind, thank you. Now, I'm sorry, but I best be going, as you can plainly see." I tell her, letting my situation with all this mess throw her nose off of my trail.

"Oh... Oh! Of course, please. Please don't let me keep you, Nin!" she lets out, unsure at first before she laughs what she can out.