Some three days passed, with the most noteworthy thing being how the protorelationship had affected sleeping arrangements - the first night, Mila had spent some two or three hours laying there, awake, wondering if she should commit and brush her tail against Rora’s arm, to just kind of… be there, with her. This was solved by Rora making the overt move instead, (gently) grabbing hold of the uneasy tail and pulling it closer. Since then, the two had just slept each night a bit more aware of the other’s presence, Mila’s tail-tip held in Rora’s hand.
Thankfully, the interruption on the third day was people. Not people that they knew personally, nor people coming from Kraddel, but people hailing them from ahead of the road with a jaunty energy nonetheless. Their excitement was the only reason the party saw them in advance, even, flashing the insides of their cloaks that were coated in bright, flashy colors.
The four pollies did not rush them or anything, there was no hurry, but one of the avian humanoids did call out, “Looking to trade, if you please!” His voice was, if it were anything, the soft rustle of wind through the leaves as summer turned to fall. The pollies were, as a people, known for their love of new things, their gorgeous voices, and a dislike of too many folks nearby.
It was said that the grey bird folk plucked elements from their environments and weaved their voices from it, much like how they weaved their nest-beds. Mostly that sounded like a few polly musicians just wanted some extra help with their popularity to Mila. Yet at the same time, they had earned their name, derived as it was from polylingual and how every one of the people seemed to be a damn-near universal translator. Special voices, which they did seem to have, was just extra.
Once they approached the quartet, who seemed to be a couple and their teenage-sorts, the family tucked their arms away, hiding the bright colors they had signaled with. The outside of their outfits were pointedly designed to avoid attention, and had something of a homemade ghillie suit feel to them, with tufts of local foliage tucked into little pockets and loops of grey and brown and rust-red fabric. They were also probably quite effective, if Mila had a guess - they could have hunkered down off the road and her group of adventury types would have passed on by without a clue.
“You traders?” The other tall polly asked, head tilting to the side. It set Mila on edge a bit but she fought against the feeling - the sudden head tilt read as aggression from folks with more reptilian bodies, but she knew here it was curiosity. Knowing it with her noggin just did not keep her stomach from tensing up a bit.
Rora did not bat an eye at all, however, and strode forward with a welcoming aura at full blast. “Afraid not, we’re off looking into some anomalous reports up north. But that doesn’t mean we can’t look over what you have!”
Any kind of anomaly worth investigating would be of concern to a nomadic family making their life between cities, and the news had both taller pollies exchange a look. After a moment of silent conversation, they either settled the matter or put it off until later, as the bigger one, a little bulkier in the shoulders, stepped to the side and started shrugging off his camouflage cloak.
In the process, he ended up showing off the large sets of feathers he had under his arms, dark except for two large spots of pure white. Once he realized he was flashing his eyespots, he mumbled an apology and tucked his elbows in, hiding them as he finished getting his pack off. Once he had it seated, he rustled through it, pulling out a few things and on a couple of occasions, giving a quick little chirping line to his partner, which would be answered with either a shake of the head or a nod and another thing being pulled out.
Where the first one had sounded like that special kind of breeze that kicked up in autumn, this fellow’s voice, even in the unknown native tongue of the pollies if Mila had to guess, was the burbling of an early spring creek, where the water was still a tad too chilly to be bothering with, from being from up higher on the mountains. Even if the year got warm early for that kind of thing, you would always regret hopping into the water.
The younger two were content observing, sometimes tilting their heads or half-stepping to the side to better peer around their dads. The dark grey coloration that painted a band across their eyes looked quite dramatic to Mila, giving them a… Zoro-esque feel. She nodded towards the one closer to her and got a nod back, which did not help with her not knowing what to do. But it did make her start to wonder if she would look good in a mask. It would have to be custom made, given her whole snout situation, even if they went to a shop that catered to folk as small as she was.
She had no clue what color would work though. The pollies were all naturally shades of grey, minus the bright white wing spots, lighter the more towards the front you got. It was unfair, how they almost certainly did not have to worry about what would look good on them - grey went with everything! Fuchsia….
Well. Mila would probably have a harder time with color coordinating if she gave half a flying fuck. She might not wear that off-putting vomit yellow, which *did* clash with her scales, but why would she let that stop her from sporting orange or a brighter pink? A neon lime green might even have a bit of a flower vibe with her! A particularly garish flower.
Alright, maybe she did not quite care what color mask would work for her. Now she just wanted eye-catching options!
When Mila got around to tuning back in, Rora and the bigger polly were discussing what the travelers had to trade and what they were interested in. “Now, we can’t part with too much food, but we can make something work. And if it’ll help, we were going to stop for lunch soon anyway, and Naw-Naw there is as fine a cook as you’ll find out here. We both provide some fare, they can cook and we can eat together?”
The things laid out did not catch Mila’s eye, but it seemed that a small jar was the item Rora was negotiating for. “You come from the city, yes? Recently? We would value your fresher fruits and grains.”
“Let’s see what we have,” was the response with a bob of the head and moving to go through her own pack. It had been a point of rumor, when their group first congealed, but the novelty had worn off for the folks back in Rat-Hate - Rora was the one who toted the heftiest pack, almost comically bulging full of supplies. In spite of being half the height of most of the group, Rora put them to shame when it came to toting stuff about.
Stolen story; please report.
As she fished through and pulled out some peaches at the top of the bag, where they could sit unbruised, it did occur to Mila how… odd it was that Rora was the strongest. Compared to herself, it was not that weird that Rora was stronger, but body weight and overall size definitely should have come into play at some point. Rora looked good and toned, but was not built like a power lifter at all.
A bag of flour, to be portioned out for whatever was fair, joined the peaches as their spokeswoman continued digging down. Mila also knew that it was not the moonlight plates of armor bolstering her friend. They could be dismissed as easily as they were brought forth into existence, and them not being present did not weaken Rora’s strength.
That all just seemed very off, and also put her to mind of her own speed and flexibility. “And we can be sure to use some raspberry jam with today’s lunch as a treat,” seemed to be Rora wrapping up the negotiations proper, as Mila continued to think. The yodels had damned near tore her leg off and it had not even slowed her down. That was pretty fucking weird and by and large she had just put it to the back of her mind? Just accepted that a shredded limb could be healed with a magic biscuit and it would not leave a scar or need to consider blood loss?
It’s not like it was just kobolds with convenient superpowers either. Even now Mila could, and did, watch as Naw-Naw shook out six cups of flour into a paper bag, speaking with god-backed authority that it was six cups exactly. And Mila could not scrape her mind for a time she had seen Naw-Naw use a measuring device. No spoons, no cups, no scale. Just eyeballing amounts and being right every time.
It was all just stuff that was normal, after all. Not everyone could do it but everybody knew somebody who knew someone who could, or something like that. But there was not magic involved and now that she was looking, Mila knew how not normal it was. The dissonance had not been buzzing before, but now that she had forced herself to notice, it was a swarm of angry bees in her bonnet.
“We can offer some game for the meal,” the other polly, dubbed Wind-Through-Leaves in Mila’s mind now as the birdfolk did not share their names readily as a culture around here, said. “Rabbit, turkey, or snipe.”
Rora gave a nod, her part in the dealings complete, and stepped away as Naw-Naw took center stage. “Rabbit would do us best, I’m thinkin’. Have herbs ‘n’ ‘tatoes, bread that’s still soft for the jam. Alright with y’all?” Which did indeed sound quite good to Mila, and clearly to the family who all silently agreed.
They walked down the road together a little bit to find a proper place to set up for lunch, building up a quick little fire and Naw-Naw getting to work. The mostly-strangers were hardly a stranger to Rora by this point, which was likely some other preternatural ability of the woman’s and definitely not the echoes of social anxiety on Mila’s part. The fathers stood off to the side of the fire talking to her, while Hughestace and the younger pollies watched the conversation, drinking in what was being discussed.
That gave Mila the opportunity to snag Aluca, with the excuse of them watching for any wandering critters if they got called out. They were not going to be called out, but having an excuse preloaded all the same was important.
“So, I’m gonna ask you something and I don’t give a fuck if you think I’m crazy for it, just get to answering. That alright?” Was not the most tactful opening, but if it worked….
… If it worked, it worked, but it also definitely absolutely earned the raised eyebrow that it brought out. “Depends on the question, of course. But sure.” Normally that would be an easy opening for a light ribbing from the man, but something about Mila’s tone had him holding off any of that, for now at least.
Actually promising a given emotional reaction without knowing what was up would have been suspicious in itself, so that response was more than kosher with Mila. “How come Rora is the strongest of all of us, by a country mile?”
“Uh, I mean, she swings a big sword and practices with it. Eats well. None of us have met her parents, right, but that probably has something to do with it?”
That had Mila screw up her face. Certainly, each element there influenced how strong one was, but…. “But she has been carrying around, what, almost double her body weight all day? Not even broken a sweat.”
Mila did not know all that much about the specifics of training in the American military back in Scienceland, but she knew one of the things folks bitched about was having to go on long marches with their full packs. And their packs were nowhere approaching their body weight. The center of balance difficulties alone should be wild.
“We’re all used to traveling out here, used to the weather. And again, she’s got practice. She’s been carrying much of our stuff for a while.” By now, Aluca was giving her a bit of a look, clearly trying to figure out the disconnect to bridge it for her.
Mila was not sure that was going to happen. “I can run laps around you, and everyone else here, with ease. You are twice my height, but I’m pretty sure I can jump over you without a runnin’ start, and not even risk clipping your noggin with my boots. Can you or anyone of our friends do anything close to that?”
“No, but again, you practice. We all practice our skills regularly, we just have different skills, is all. Nothing wrong with that, and everyone does their job well.” He raised a hand, ready to drop it on her shoulder semi-reassuringly, but his hand stretched open and snapped shut, falling back to his side.
Anything else to be said between the two was interrupted by Naw-Naw’s boisterous call of “First fixin’s are up!” To call everyone to the food. Aluca did give it a beat, to make sure Mila did not need more from him right now, and she waved a hand, giving a sharp nod. It was a harsher dismissal than she meant, but she was already deep in thought.
Aluca was right. They all practiced their abilities, damn near daily in the morning and then sporadically out in the field. And they ate well, Naw-Naw’s own skills making sure nobody went hunger or malnourished, not if they had a say in it.
But they were strong in their areas. She had been thinking of herself as comparable to a multi-sport Olympic athlete before, but that was not quite true at all. She was far above them in a lot of ways, as were each of her teammates, for the sole reason that they did not have modern Scienceland materials to work with. And more damning - they were all very skilled for Fantasyland too.
Not, like, folktale legends exactly. Rora was not a glitteringly scaled Paul Bunyan. But when that slimy fuck Ouran had been harassing her, she had even weighed it out that she could have easily closed the distance, gotten to his throat, and ripped it out. It had never been a question of capability - he was slow and oafish in his movements, dull of eye and hand. And he was a Fantasyland cop, a guarantor of the state’s violence. They were not supposed to be ones you thought of as offhandedly crushed between your jaws.
And Aluca put all that down to practice. That practice was responsible for Hughestace being able to spot things better than a hawk with binoculars and how Aluca himself could easily memorize the placement of three dozen reagents on his person and grab needed amounts from a handful of them in the chaos of a fight. That was all practice to him, and to a part of her.
But that was also clearly wrong, and the buzzing of its wrongness continued unabated, termites in her tree of knowledge. There was something present that nobody here, at least, knew of in play, and the whispers of Scienceland coiled about, quietly speaking its answers.
Levels.