Samengawin tapped his foot against the packed earth as he waited. He regarded himself a patient man, but even he had his limits. He pulled his right sleeve back to reveal a wristwatch- a convenient trinket he’d picked up at a Snif town. A radial dial went around, indicating what hour it was in the day, and moved between the hours to give an idea how long until the next. He was told a tiny rotostone kept it moving apace, but Sam knew nothing of these things. All he knew was it worked well enough, and he was satisfied by that.
The holdup was less satisfying to him. He stood in front of his wagon, side opened to display many wares that he had for sale. Sam was a traveling merchant, having been banished from his homeland for “disrupting the public order”. He still didn’t get it, but was past his grumbling days and now traveled from town to city to village, buying up strange and exotic items to trade for bulk necessities for cheap. The Snif town was his previous stop, having sold many basic goods, while purchasing a mixture of his own sundries as well as a hefty number of neat contraptions. He had only a cursory understanding how any of them worked, but that’s all it took to pawn them off on someone whose curiosity got the better of their wallet. His favorite kind of customer.
He had come to this village for two reasons- One, to stock up on essentials as he made the long trek to the next city to the north. He was hoping one he could trade a few of the things he picked up from the Snif artisans for what he needed, but the village folk couldn’t understand him and seemed disinterested in the odd clumps of metal.
These people were clearly intelligent, but didn't know speak any language he knew. Their language sounded like grunts and bellows to him, but that only meant that he couldn't speak directly to them. He had pantomimed a little, and that was enough to make a few basic transactions, but he simply didn’t have enough to offer to get what he needed. If he could just speak to them, he felt, then he would be able to make some quality trades, but that was out of reach, and so he settled for what he could get.
There had been a large commotion where the villagers appeared to be looking for someone. One of them- a smaller villager who still towered over Sam by well over a meter- made placating gestures, as if beckoning for him to wait. And so, Sam stood here, waiting to see what in the world was going on. If nothing else, he wanted to leave here with a story.
The villagers were all enormous, standing anywhere between two and three meters tall, some with bony protrusions from the sides of their heads. Sam had no idea what these people were called, but as he had no way to ask, he thought about it no further.
The villager who had urged him to wait approached again. This one had no protrusions, and had a scar on their side, making them easy to identify. Sam looked into their eyes, slightly put off by the rectangular pupils. As they saw him make eye contact, they pointed to the sun.
“Yeah?” Sam said, unfolding his arms into a half shrug. “What about it?”
The villager slowly took their arm in a slow motion, drawing a line from the sun’s current point to the horizon. It looked to him for understanding.
“Aw hell,” Sam said, facepalming. “This gonna take all day? Arright, ya big beastie. Y’all been real kind to me, despite the whole 'not understanding'. I’ll wait.”
Sam put his hands out in the same placating gesture, trying to imitate the idea of ‘wait’, then leaned back against his wagon. He then pointed at the sun and drew the same line to the horizon.
The villager immediately stood up with more energy, and began to swivel slightly to the left and right, letting out small grunts as it did so, before turning to leave.
Sam sighed, giving a shake of the head as he reached up to his display. He grabbed a toy, and rearranged the small colorful cube to pass the time.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Sam had long given up on the damnable cube, swearing that returning it to an orderly state was impossible, when two of the villagers came up to his wagon. The sun’s last rays were disappearing into the distant mountains, so he figured that these were the people he needed to meet.
One of the two was clearly elderly, their fur greyed and drooping with aged, saggy skin. The other appeared to be a youth, at least compared to the other. Sam had no basis for comparison with these far-flung peoples. The elderly one let out a few long, drawn out groans as it lifted one enormous hand towards the other in a gesture that universally spoke, ‘go ahead’. The younger sat back on its haunches, and took out what appeared to be a necklace and a silver hoop. The necklace was small, akin to a choker, featuring a plate on the front. The silver hoop had a small bauble that hung off of it. Both had tiny inscriptions carved into them that glowed a faint pink when they put them on. Sam had no idea what these items did, but surely something that intricate and glowy was somehow magical. Of more interest to him was how rare and valuable such things were, and his attention immediately was glued onto them.
The young one took a few moments to fasten the choker around their neck. As they did so, their small grunts of exertion took on an odd tone. After they had done so, they took the hoop and placed it around one of their ears, the bauble getting placed inside the ear. They cleared their throat, and spoke a single word.
“Speak.”
Sam shook his head. He could swear he heard the word ‘Speak’, but also heard the gutteral sound that made up their normal speech.
“What am I, yer pet?” Sam said, before the idea that this villager could actually understand him occurred to him. When it did just a moment later, he paled.
“Wait, wait, waitaminute. Sorry, I was just ah, caught a lil off guard there for a moment,” Sam quickly corrected. “So can you understand me?”
The villagers ears flicked a few times, then they responded.
“Yes,” came the low, smooth voice, layered over the even lower growls, “I understand you. My name is HuuuaaeeEEEERRRrr-”
Sam clapped his hands over his ears as the voice cut out to just the sound underneath, a very loud, trumpeting sound that hurt to hear.
“Hmm,” came the low voice again, “I don’t think that worked as intended. I will need to work on that soon. I apologize. Is the rest of my speech understandable?”
“Ah,” Sam began, slowly drawing his hands from his ears. “Yeah, I think so. The hearin’ double is weird, but I at least know what yer saying now. Is that necklace letting you talk? Like a translator?”
Seeing the face of one of these villagers screw into confusion was an amusing sight to behold, and Sam had to restrain laughter.
"That word, what does it mean?" They asked Sam.
"Translator? Like a person or thing that translates one language to another?" Sam offered.
They paused, taking what Sam said in, then asked Sam to repeat the word. Instead of confusion, their face brightened with understanding.
"Much better. It must not be able tell me what I do not already know. Thank you, stranger."
Sam said as he put a hand forward to shake. “My name’s Sam. Travellin’ merchant, at yer service. You already told me yer name, but I don't think I can pronounce that. Anything else I can call you? Maybe just Hugh? That's the first part of yer name, or close enough, right?"
"Hugh is fine," Hugh agreed as he shook Sam's proffered hand. Despite all the difficulties of language, the concept of a handshake transcended all boundaries of culture and speech.
"This is Maril," Hugh continued as he gestured to the elderly villager. "She is having me translate, as you said, while-"
Hugh was cut off by the bellow of another of the villagers calling for help from the edge of the village. Maril dashed off without any hesitation. Sam made a mental note that advanced age did not seem to impact these people's athleticism. Hugh hesitated before following Maril.
“Someone needs help. We must go, but will return soon,” Hugh told Sam, before rushing off to the sound where villagers were gathering.
“Guess I'll just wait some more. Figures.” Sam muttered unhappily as he leaned back again. He glanced at the cube of jumbled colors disdainfully.
"Maybe when they get back I can trick them into taking you off my hands."