Chapter Forty Eight

"...and, you can only become an ancestor once you reach a certain age?"

"Oh, yes. You can't do it whenever. That would be silly."

"But what happens if someone does? I mean, let's say that you ran off and just decided to become an ancestor today, what would be stopping you?"

Kani tilted her head from side to side. It seemed to be a common gesture around here - well, based on two data points. Kani and her mother both did the same thing when they were confused, deep in thought, perplexed... anything that wasn't certainty. If they were certain, they nodded firmly and stared. When they were uncertain, they tilted their heads from side to side, and usually said 'eh' at least a few times while blinking like startled cats. Well, Carza hadn't talked to Kani's mother, but she'd seen Kani talking to her mother, and both had spent half the conversation nattering away while tilting their heads constantly. Carza had dutifully noted it down in one of the more obscure language she'd learned during her degree, a tongue spoken by an extinct group which once lived on the peripheries of ALD IOM. Learned not due to practicality, but because it was a useful test in 'how quickly can you learn a language which is largely unrelated to anything you know, and is also completely dead so you can't just pick it up from listening'. The answer, incidentally, was... not very quickly at all.

But no-one else could understand it. Which was good for her notes. Maybe that gesture was a sacred act which couldn't be insulted on pain of death. And mentioning it in writing was considered an insult.

You never knew.

"...well, it wouldn't be right."

Kani paused, tilted her head, mumbled a little...

"...but the ancestors would not permit it."

"Hm?"

"They do not allow the promotion of the immature. They'd kill me before I got close."

"But contamination-"

She paused.

"...the nectar of the mountain-roots, it can be found elsewhere, right?"

"No. Of course not."

Kani spoke confidently, and crossed her arms in satisfaction.

"The nectar of the mountain-roots is only in the mountains."

Carza's typing slowed to a halt. Hm. How to ask... hm. Was it a pure strain of contamination? Another substance entirely? Or was it just an arbitrary division? She'd heard that old pools of contamination were usually hazardous to go near, even by the standards of, well, contamination. Mutants shed parts of themselves as they changed, random organic detritus could get mixed in... dip into a pure pool of contamination, and you might come out looking monstrous. Dip into an aged pool, clogged with trash, and you were likely to come out a shambling abomination barely capable of functioning, a squirming mass of limbs and random elements struggling to fuse into something coherent, madly searching for any more contamination just to try and finish the mutation process. Maybe that was the case here - their biology was meant to mutate in a structured fashion, going from a juvenile which was capable of breeding but was also weak, to an infertile and monstrously powerful adult capable of protecting those in its charge. She could easily imagine the reasons for the process - imagine a group which had an immortal army of enormous ancestors standing ready to defend them in the event of attack. But the specifics of its mechanics were eluding her.

"...alright, there's a substance in the ground which can make people... change. Do you have a name for that?"

"Oh! Yes, that's called whale-carapace."

Carza blinked... then decided to act like an anthropolgist. She tilted her head to one side, then the other, and went 'eh' once or twice while blinking rapidly Kani looked at her for a moment... then snorted.

"Whale-carapace. The shells of the dead ancestors who are floating downwards to the Iron Halls."

Iron Halls... that definitely felt capitalised, and she made sure to do so in her notes. An afterlife of some kind? Hold on, how far was the ocean from this place, how did people in the middle of the steppe in the shadow of a mountain range know about whales? Carza had read about whales, but before the world had been opened up to ALD IOM with all its pulp fiction and strange images, the only mention of 'whales' had been in some obscure bestiaries. Mostly they just focused on how large their... equipment was. Urgh. She liked it when old things were polite, when they were vulgar it always felt faintly violating. Like shaking hands with someone who had a sweaty palm and filthy nails. She opened her mouth to keep questioning...

When Kani's mother strode in.

Taller than Kani, stronger-looking, weathered... it seemed like this species didn't get fat as they grew older, they just became more and more dense. Like they were packing on internal mass for their eventual transformation. Eerie to think about it that way, but... Carza hadn't really spoken to her. Evening was drawing in now, Kani's sewing had been completely abandoned, Carza had been dedicated to interviewing her, teasing out more and more hints of information, and generally improving her command of the language here. In exchange, Kani insisted on being allowed to play with the typewriter. She'd successfully written her own name, and was slowly figuring out how to use Carza's alphabet properly, but... well, it was slow going. Didn't help that she was illiterate, so she was learning to read at the same time as learning to use a completely new alphabet that struggled to really get through her language. Golden rays of light passed around Kani's mother as she stood in the loosened flaps of the tent... Founder, how long had they been talking?

"I take it our guest is recovering properly?"

Kani nodded brightly.

"Oh, yes. Indeed. She speaks our language quite well, in fact."

Kani's mother shot Carza a suspicious glance.

"Do you?"

"I can keep up. But my vocabulary is still simple."

"You learn quickly."

"Not quite. I already had some knowledge when I arrived."

"You came over the mountains... and you don't look like any of the locals here. Where are you from, exactly?"

Kani flushed... well, she looked like she was flushing in embarrassment. Her glass skin gleamed a very slightly different shade, the refraction shifting a subtle amount. Interesting.

"Ah. I apologise. I should've asked myself."

Carza shrugged.

"No, no, it's... I'm from a city called ALD IOM. North-east, over the mountains. Some people came over from this part of the world centuries ago, that's why I know the language... well, an older form. I'm here to study."

Kani's mother looked down at her with a healthy amount of suspicion. Fair enough, really.

"Study?"

Ah. She'd anticipated this problem.

"I'm a... priestess. My home is a monastery in ALD IOM. I'm here to honour my god by learning as much as I can about others, how they think, how they worship, how they act."

Kani's mother blinked.

"...I... see. A priestess."

Term was irritatingly ambiguous. Carza hummed...

"Do you have a term for people who are bound to a god, and do not marry?"

"...you mean a dharadmas?"

Carza blinked. Right. OK. Dharadmas meant a nun, she could work with that. Nun felt accurate anyhow.

"It's probably a close equivalent, yes. I'm sorry, my language is poor, otherwise I'd be more specific."

Goodness, she was talking a lot. She blamed the fact that she was using a foreign language - it added a kind of distance to her thoughts. She thought in her own language, and spoke in this Tralkic dialect. Which worked out just fine for her, it made everything feel just a little... unreal. Exhausting, yes. But everything was exhausting at the moment. Panic helped.

"I see. I apologise for our lack of courtesy. Would you feel able to eat with the rest of the camp?"

She wanted to go back to sleep. And then stay there for a very long time, until all her skin was back, and she felt up to more protracted conversations. She'd been so propelled by necessity that she hadn't quite realised how tired these interviews had made her. It was weird - the weariness became irritation, because she just wanted people to leave her alone and they weren't, then it became a disaffected good humour, because she was too tired to feel much of anything, and then it just became... grief, in a way. Guilt. She couldn't afford to be tired and irritable, she was bound to a task which she had to complete. One day she might come home, yes, but this was in every respect the beginning of a whole chunk of her life. The steppe would be before her for a long, long time. And... and she couldn't afford to be weak.

The gnawing in her stomach demanded she stay awake, even as her eyes insisted on getting some damn rest.

"Yes. I'd be able to. Thank you, again, for saving me."

She nodded deeply, not quite a bow - she didn't know how bowing worked here, but something ambivalent felt like a good idea. Extremes could offend deeply, ambivalence was always mild, mildly polite, mildly offensive, never something worth getting killed over.

"Good. Kani, make sure our guest is properly prepared."

And with that, she was gone. Very curt... not sure if that was a cultural thing, a personal thing, some mixture of the two. Maybe foreigners received curt treatment, or maybe it was because she'd showed up smelling like one of their ancestors. Either way... Carza yawned slightly as the woman left, and Kani was all that remained. Founder, she was tired... a long dinner didn't sound like what she wanted, and she imagined she'd be sitting down for most of it - good for her weary legs, bad for her weary eyes. A chair was one step removed from a bed, after all. Quietly, clumsily, she started packing her typewriter back up, sealing her papers into the oilskin cases she'd dedicated for the purpose - nice and waterproof. Kani helped her, and kept shooting her strange glances, glances that Carza had to struggle not to return. She'd discovered a new damn species, for crying out loud. What were the bloody chances? The Yasa had called Kani's ancestors gods, and Kani had called herself a demigod... she'd discovered a group that ALD IOM didn't even know existed, and she had years to study them.

If Hull was here, she'd be going completely insane.

As it was, she simply felt mad.

"Carza, you smell like dung. I'll boil a cauldron."

Oh Founder they were going to cook her, they were... wait. She sniffed herself experimentally. Hm. Well, she didn't smell good, but... then again, she hadn't smelled good since she'd had ready access to running water and soap. And after a point, when nothing was good, then everything was just varying flavours of bad. So... maybe she was a little ripe, but... oh, come on, Kani didn't smell good either, she smelled like horses, grass, and a distinct lack of...

"This is just for the face. Later, perhaps, we can bathe properly, once the right herbs are found."

"Uh."

"Yes, it'll be nice to bathe properly before-"

"Herbs?"

"...yes, herbs."

"Doesn't bathing usually involve... water?"

"What? No. That's washing. Bathing is where you go into a sealed tent and burn a huge amount of certain herbs. It seeps into the clothes and skin. And makes you feel like you're floating. Do you not have that in... Oldeyeom?"

"ALD IOM. And... no. We just bathe. With water."

Kani looked at her like she was insane.

"That's silly. Water is for washing."

"Do you ever immerse yourself in water? You know, to clean yourself?"

"Of course not. That's ridiculous. Water is for the outer layer of dirt. Smoke is for cleaning."

Founder. Did these people smoke huge quantities of narcotics instead of... washing? Oh, Founder, coming here was a mistake. A complete mistake. They were clearly mad. Maybe they were all ferocious opium addicts and were going to claw her face off while screaming about snakes and eyes in the sky. Oh, Founder... she was remembering coca. Would this be like having coca layering her skin, coating her lungs, permeating her every pore... a shiver ran up her spine. She'd adore some coca right now. Just a little, really. A little coca would relax her, help her feel less... no. But... dammit, now she was thinking about... she reached around in her bag...

She still had some left.

Kani watched in interest as she piled some kind of fuel under the cauldron in the centre of the tent. Carza was getting the feeling that maintaining the cauldron was a constant thing - warmed the room, put some moisture in the air, and probably served some kind of practical purpose. No idea what the fuel was, though. Dark brown pellets, shovelled on gladly. Anyway. No time for it. Cigarillos were retrieved from their little box... oh, she didn't have many left, not many at all. No matches. But there was a fire right there, so... Kani spoke up as Carza was about to light up.

"What are you doing?"

"Lighting a cigarillo. I just need one to relax. Talking about smoking made me think about them."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"Cigarillo?"

"...like the herbs you burn for bathing, but you breathe them in. You don't soak in them."

"How silly."

Kani gestured vaguely, and Carza reluctantly handed over one of her few remaining cigarillos. The girl sniffed up and down, humming lightly.

"...hm. Interesting. It smells wonderful."

"I'm aware."

"Why would you not wish to bathe in it? I would be interest in smelling like this."

"Please don't. I only have so many. The leaves are a bit expensive, is all."

"Expensive?"

"Valuable."

"Ah. Hm. May I try one?"

Carza lit up her cigarillo from the softly crackling fire under the central cauldron, and extended it to Kani. She didn't want to waste two, just let her have a quick puff, and... no, best to demonstrate. The first puff sent a flood of wonderful smoke into her mouth, which she mulled like some other people might mull wine. It needed to be appreciated, the way it seeped into her, the way it sent pulsing waves of relief through her entire chest, a warmth which very few things could really match. One puff, inhale, exhale... then another, another... no, wait, she was meant to be sharing this. Kani accepted the cigarillo presented to her, the end burning gently and merrily, before mimicking Carza's actions.

"Don't let it into your lungs. Just let it mull in your mouth, then exhale."

Kani inhaled. Deeply. A full-on drag...

She held it.

Held it some more.

Squinted in interest.

Then exhaled gently through her nose. Not a single cough, none of the things Carza had gone through when she'd first started smoking.

"That is... quite wonderful."

"Do you think so?"

"I do. The taste is very pleasant. May I have more?"

"...I don't really have... alright. But just that one, alright? I haven't got many to go around."

Kani was already smoking, her eyes narrowed with concentration. She smoked with her entire face, her cheeks puffing in and out like a pair of bellows, her face screwing up with the intensity of her focus. She was... goodness, she was really making her way through it. Had Carza gotten someone else addicted to cigarillos? Well, based on the... herbs they used for bathing, maybe she was replacing a horrible addiction with a marginally sexier one. Not to be vulgar, but cigarillos were incredibly attractive. Coca wasn't, coca just stained your teeth and addled your wits, or left you with scarred track marks up the arm if you were inclined towards injection. Tobacco... now that was a way of satisfying intense chemical dependencies while looking effortlessly suave. And she was feeling very tired, so...

Eh.

"Maybe you should take those herbs you use for bathing, roll them up, smoke them this way."

Kani shrugged.

"Why would I do that? That sounds stupid."

"It'd look..."

She trailed off. How to translate...

"It'd look sophisticated."

Kani blinked.

"Do people over the mountains do it?"

"I know no-one who bathes in smoke, if that's what you mean. We all bathe in water. And we smoke using those. Sometimes we use pipes, too."

Kani nodded seriously.

"I see. I see."

She puffed a few more times - Founder, she'd destroyed almost half the cigarillo by now, she was intense. The two sat in silence, and Carza wondered if she'd maybe begun to tutor someone else in the ways of righteousness, that is to say, the virtues of smoking tobacco and bathing in water. The cauldron was starting to bubble up now, and Carza found herself wondering what the hell that fuel was. It wasn't wood, and there wasn't much wood around here anyway, so... hm. Hm. Embarrassing to ask... and she just wanted to sleep.

She really wanted to sleep.

But there was a dinner to attend, work to be done... she splashed some of the water from the cauldron over her face as Kani continued to smoke happily in her corner, her dark eyes gleaming like opals behind a veil of smog. The water was... Carza sagged. Something in her back had just relaxed spontaneously, something she'd been keeping tense for a long while. She splashed more water over her face, before pushing her fingers through her hair, letting it soak through the strands... sweat had clumped them up, dirt had caked on, grease too... and all of it was flowing out with each push. The first push, and her fingers came away stained a thick brown shade. Another, and the shade was lighter. Then, her fingers simply felt dirtied by contact... and after dozens of repetitions, she could feel her fingers coming away clean and smooth, as her hair formed a flawless black helmet clinging tightly to her scalp. Her face was simply dunked straight in, and she gladly ignored how the water soaked into her collar. Kani was still smoking, and Carza paid her no mind. Too busy cleansing. Piece by piece. Patch by patch. Inch by inch she reclaimed herself from the dirt and dust that had accumulated. Her face was salty with dried tears, her fingers were...

She saw matter flowing from underneath her fingernails.

Her breath tightened.

Hull's blood. She hadn't washed it off. She watched the last physical remnant of Hull's body flowing away into the near-boiling water... and weariness pulsed upwards from her stomach.

She was trying to be busy. Trying to be productive. Trying to do all the things she was meant to. And then she'd glance down, a thought would go down the wrong path, something would happen, and... and then it'd all come flooding back. Hull. Anthan. Lirana. Egg. Cam. Melqua sitting alone in her room waiting for Carza to come back home. The local girl who'd died so Kralat could prove a point. The sight of that thing in the forest... the feeling of holding Hull in her hands as he bled out. He was able to see the steppe, but then... then he'd gone. She remembered kissing him, and... and the water was pulling that away too. Slowly but surely, she was losing the last few weeks, all of it simply flowing away into the cloudy depths. Her arms were stained with blood too, she had a whole suite of tiny cuts... the warmth seemed to unfreeze something.

And she sagged, clutching the hot edges of the cauldron, barely able to remain upright.

For a long moment she rested there, breathing heavily. Watching everything wash away. She wanted to peel her clothes off and just... dive into the cloudy water, boil herself in it, purify herself completely. Strip it all away. Maybe if she remained there for long enough she'd clean off everything that she'd brought with her, leave behind something flawless and smooth. Something dedicated. Maybe. She almost jumped into the air as Kani's hand found her shoulder, squeezing it... the same thing Hull did all the time. Less commitment than a hug, but just as soothing.

"Are you well?"

They didn't know. They'd never seen the bodies. They had no idea. They thought she'd just come over on her own, like some sort of idiot. No idea that five people needed to die for her to get close to this place, and now that she was here, now that she had won, she was... was...

"You're... crying, are you-"

Carza splashed more water over her face, washing away the fresh tears.

"I'm fine. Please. Just give me a moment."

"You do not seem well. Are you still injured?"

"No, no, just... just give me a few minutes, alright? I need to get dressed."

Kani squeezed her shoulder again, sending another small wave of pain up through Carza's stomach. She'd never feel Hull doing that again. Sometimes she forgot that, her brain just glossed over the detail of his death and kept assuming the status quo. It remembered squeezed shoulders, the occasional hug, the feeling of curling up to Hull and enjoying his warmth. It could only assume this unconsciously. When she thought about it, when she genuinely concentrated on something, and her unconscious mind conjured up those memories... then she had to correct it. And the realisation made the bottom of her thoughts drop away. Certainties faded. And she felt half-complete. She would always be a half-complete person, there was a whole path ahead of her which involved Hull, and without it... Carza with Hull was different to Carza without Hull. And now she was condemned to be the latter, and every so often she could see the shades of the former in the corner of her eye.

And every time she did, she realised how much happier those shades looked. How much more certain. How much more comfortable.

"Do not worry. I'm sure you feel homesick. I was born a great distance from here, and sometimes I remember the indigo fields, the smell of the wild berries... when I was younger, I wept and wept. I'm sure it'll pass. Here."

She passed the cigarillo over. Mostly gone, but...

Carza smoked some anyway.

It felt pretty amazing, if she was going to be totally honest about it. Tobacco solved most of her problems, even if the tobacco was used. And wet from the cauldron's steam. And mostly consumed by someone who was part of a different damn species from her. Who cared. She smoked it all up until she had nothing but a small black stub which needed to be held between her finger and thumb.

"...thanks. Can I have a moment alone, though?"

"Of course. Take all the time you need."

"And... thank you. Really. For saving me out there. You didn't need to, and-"

"Shush, you ridiculous creature. What kind of monsters would leave someone as thin as you alone on the steppe, suffering from frostbite?"

"...I suppose."

"Now, get yourself ready. Father is making boil-bag soup."

"What?"

"Boil-bag soup. We skin a sheep, and-"

Carza dunked her head back underwater. She wasn't thinking about it. She was just going to dunk her head until she absolutely had to leave, and in the meantime was going to pretend Kani had said precisely nothing. Boil-bag soup... that sounded like some sort of exotic torture method. 'Subject her to the boil-bag soup!' 'No, anything but the boil-bag soup, I'll tell you everything about anthropological theories which continue to have relevance in modern scholarship, just don't put me in the boil-bag soup!' 'Ha ha, and now we may become well-educated and anthropologically enlightened, and the libraries of the world shall be conquered by the unrelenting march of our scholarship!' 'Noooooo!'

...was she running out of oxygen?

She might be.

She didn't care.

Oxygen was for chumps. Oxygen brought lucidity and lucidity brought misery. Real scholars smoked tobacco and lingered in a permanent haze, drinking brandy when the tobacco wasn't quite doing the job. She heard Kani leaving, at least... well, felt the thump of her feet as she walked away transmitted through the water inside the cauldron. Which made her feel wonderfully perceptive, but she could've learned that from having her head not in a giant bowl of hot water. A second later, the second she was certain she'd have some privacy, she was removing her waistcoat, her shirt, her undershirt, her second undershirt, right down to the camisole, hopped in with nary a thought to the consequences of dunking herself in a cauldron of near-boiling water, and...

Oh, Founder...

* * *

The camp was a huddled mass of structures in the middle of the steppe. Carza relaxed as she stepped out into the fresh air, letting the scents of the grasslands wash over her. She felt relaxed. Clean. Ready for something else. Ready for distractions, that was for sure. It took a conscious effort to leave the typewriter in the tent. She'd just need to avoid drinking, then scribble down everything that happened the second she got back inside. The sun was going down, and in every direction around her was a green-gold ocean, sprinkled with more varieties of flower than she knew existed. The declining light turned the ocean into an earthbound night sky, the flowers became twinkling stars with petals of purest white, yellow, red, blue, and other, stranger colours that she couldn't quite identify before the dark stole them away. Tiny birds scuttled amongst the waving fronds which rose high enough to brush the knees of a mounted rider. It was a whole dwarf forest, devoid of bark, but abundant in flowers and greenery. Shadows occasionally flickered over the endless forest, the sharp wings of hawks and kites who watched the tiny birds as they scuttled for the last few seeds they dare take before the sun came down, and their vision began to fail them. No singing, not this late. But she could smell the strange scents of a landscape unlike any she'd seen before. Not perfumed, just... sweet. Gentle. Delicate. The mountains had spoiled her - unnatural perfumes lavished on every rock. Here, though, things were natural.

And nature was rarely excessive.

The tents stood in the centre of a clearing which seemed almost cushioned under her feet - the grass was shorter, and constant movement had flattened it down into a smooth, tough-yet-springy mattress which soothed her sore ankles. Each one of the tents was practically a house, with rigid walls and broad roofs. The exteriors weren't particularly attractive - just white cloth, or oiled leather for waterproofing. But inside... sometimes she caught glimpses, and once more she saw the radiating beams of their particular style of decoration. Simple exteriors, and interiors which seemed like ancient temples, all dramatic lines and golden hue. Smoke rose merrily from each and every one... just a few. Three or four. She saw shadows poking around the edges of the camp, and every so often she caught sight of the herds of horses that the people here were maintaining, plus a few sheep poking around the edges of the clearing, nibbling freely at the huge piles of grass all around. They gnawed greedily - maybe that was why this clearing was so reasonable compared to the ocean of grass. They had a herd of clearing-makers following them at all times, stay in one place for a few days and they had a little island of calm amidst the rustling stalks.

And in the centre, a great fire was rising.

Kani strode over, moving with the deliberate stride of someone completely at home here.

Her head tilted to one side.

"Are you feeling well?"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine."

Carza flushed a little with embarrassment.

"Just... needed a minute or two."

"...I see. Well. Mother is attending to the fire. The black-headed are out rounding up the herd for the night. Father wants to see you."

Oh.

Goodness. Alright. Wait, didn't she say that she had a fian... ah. The fire had a few shapes huddled around it, silhouetted starkly against the crackling flames. Something enormous was cooking on it, something she didn't quite want to identify, but... anyway. They were tall, these men - tall, hearty, dense. The same density she'd seen in Kani's mothers frame. The same air of nurturing internal strength for a great change, not growing fat in the process. The two men seated by the fire, talking quietly while Kani's mother stoked it further with more of the clumped brown matter that had been used in the tent. One was taller and wider than the other - clearly her father. His hair was wiry, black and grey, streaming down to the small of his back. She saw small objects braided into it - mostly small golden rings and... strangest of all, a few bells. They rang very gently when he moved his head slightly, and she could see how the fire turned his skin into a mass of burning sapphires. It was surreal, listening to gentle, tinkling bells, and watching a man made of gemstones sip from a bowl while speaking softly.

Kani's cough attracted their attention, and Carza pulled her coat a little tighter around herself. She'd wanted to wear her robes, just to provide a good impression, but...

...but she couldn't. Just couldn't. Made her think of too many old things that... that she could confront later, when she was ready. Not now.

The father of the family stood up heavily, cracking his neck. He stood taller than her, quite a bit taller... and he had a strength which made her feel like running away and accepting the mercies of the steppe. Reminded her far too much of the things in the mountains. Indeed, his frame looked a little... incomplete, for lack of a better word. Like his back was compensating for weight it didn't need to bear - arms that hadn't grown in yet. Like his neck was straining to hold up tusks which hadn't sprouted. He stepped closer, his bells jingling very slightly. Like the others, he was wearing a robe/coat tied around a tunic, with high brown boots completing the ensemble. Unlike the others, though, his robe was lavish, with all manner of tiny ornaments decorating it. Tiny golden charms, small bundles of exotic-looking feathers, and the omnipresent blooming rays which decorated the inside of their tents. Carza was reminded of male peacocks - how they were significantly more ornate than the females of the species. Interesting cultural habit, especially when compared to the cities of the east.

She nodded respectfully...

And the father of the household reached out, grabbed her solidly by her shoulders, and dragged her in to plant a small, polite kiss on either cheek. It was reserved. It was chaste. There was nothing untoward in the motion, she'd heard of other cultures doing similarly.

And she still blushed and had to resist the urge to splutter and stammer like some novice.

"Ah, she's awake! Glad about that, was a bit touch-and-go, eh?"

He clapped her on the shoulders with great enthusiasm, his voice was high and cheerful, but his face remained... eerily deadpan. The man at his side was slimmer, shorter, younger... clearly Kani's fiance. Working off his bride-debt apparently - interesting system, having a suitor work for his beloved's family for a few years to prove his right. She might want to write about that, if... well, she wasn't that interested in marriage anthropology. She just didn't like the idea of interrogating people on their marriages, that sounded like the epitome of awkwardness. She'd ask something, and then find out that their marriage was breaking down, they were all incredibly miserable and estranged, they were both having affairs, they fought with fists and swords and guns and small cannons... the wife was poisoning the husband, the husband was sleeping with the wife's sister... she'd read enough bad pulp novels to know where things went. She wasn't an idiot. Point was:

"Thank you for saving me, sir. I'm in your debt."

With a snort, the man passed her a cup of steaming milk, which smelled a little too sharp for just milk. More alcohol.

"Drink up, then. Start paying me back with some good company, eh?"

Kani shuffled backwards for a second... and her father immediately noticed, gesturing for her to come closer.

"Come on, sit with the guest. Be polite. Now, I'm told your name's Carza - I'm Tobok, my fire is your fire."

Carza found herself being sat down on a low stone in front of the fire, and encouraged to sip at the milk. Alcoholic. Definitely. And without much in her stomach, she was finding... ooh, she was finding it potent. How interesting. Warmth flooded her, as potent as the tobacco... and with the warm bath, she was feeling downright civilised. Even relaxed. Which was a feat, given that she was surrounded by the descendants of the things that had killed her closest friend, and one of the people on her expedition. Maybe two, if Lirana had died up there...

"Now..."

Tobok leant forwards, placing two huge hands on two huge knees, palms-down. His bowl had long-since been consumed, presumably in a single gulp. His voice rolled over her, booming and confident, emerging from a barrel-like chest that had too many ribs - a pair of vestigial arms, ready to emerge full-grown, armed with scent glands. Now more than ever, she was reminded of how... well, not human they were. She wanted to avoid saying inhuman. Too many connotations there, and this family had been frightfully kind to her.

"Now. I'm told you're a priestess. A nun."

"...of a sort, yes."

"Splendid! We've been needing one for a while. Came from over the mountains?"

"Yes. Sir. From ALD IOM. We... actually have a group of people there similar to you. Similar culture and language, I mean. We think they came from this area years and years ago, that's... why I'm here, actually. To study."

"To study us?"

"To study how you think, act, believe, talk... anything I can."

"Might I ask why?"

She remembered Kralat. How wrapping things up in tradition made them sound substantially more convincing... well. They made her sound more devout, which made her more predictable. And the more predictable she was, the safer she was in the eyes of her hosts. No-one wanted an erratic guest. She took a deep breath...

"To honour the teachings of the Founder. It's a religious mission, the Founder instructed us to learn all we could and add it to our libraries, so we can properly... well, understand the world. My entire home is devoted to this, but for a long time we weren't really able to get this far. But the roads were clear, things seemed possible, so... here I am."

Tobok blinked owlishly, tilted his head to one side, blinked a few more times... oh, so it was family-wide, then. Possibly cultural. Interesting.

"...that's a very strange way of thinking."

"Is it?"

"Yes. Very. What is the name of this Founder?"

"...just the Founder."

"You've forgotten the name of your god?"

"He's... not quite a god, more of a very remarkable person who-"

Tobok looked even more surprised.

"You've forgotten the face of your clan-source, then? That's... very odd. Very odd indeed. What do they get up to in the lands beyond the mountains... well, foreigners were never quite known to be normal, I suppose. Why, if you go too far west you find folk who worship stars. Stars. Just little pinpricks, aren't they? Why bother worshipping them, not like they make the grass grow..."

He shook his head sadly, mourning the ignorance of his neighbours.

"...well. Anyway."

Carza interrupted while he was gathering his thoughts.

"I just wanted to thank you for saving me, again, and... well, I'm interested in staying here for some time. If there's anything I can do around here to earn my keep, I'd be happy to."

The young man snorted slightly, sipping his milk while shooting her odd looks. Oh, what was so funny? Was she... uh. Well, she was painfully thin, she had very few practical skills, she could barely shoot, she was fairly weak... she couldn't even ride a horse, she'd only ever ridden behind people. So... hm. She might not have much to offer, but...

"I can sew."

Translation: I can learn to sew very quickly.

"I can clean."

Translation: I can perform light-level cleaning but I'm willing to learn how to do more intense things.

"I won't take up too much space."

Translation: I am thin and weak and you could probably store me in that cauldron when you don't want to talk with me. I am efficient to store. I require minimal upkeep. Go on, just let me cling on like a limpet, please don't make me leave.

She paused. Tobok was staring at her with interest, but... silence. He was waiting for more.

"...and... and others of my home might come here in a few years, and they'll be happy to reward anyone who can provide them with information on the area, guide them..."

A snort.

"That's very charming. But this area isn't going to be our home for longer. Moving soon. Winter's rolling in, best to get south where the hunting's better, the snows aren't as fierce. You're lucky we were out here, honestly. Been a good year."

The young man nodded, but said nothing. Still watching Carza like she was about to fly off the handle and do something insane.

"...alright. But really, any form of contact out here would be amply rewarded, I can promise that much."

Kani elbowed her in the side. Understood.

"Very amply rewarded! We can-"

Kani elbowed her harder. What was she meant to offer? More? Be more specific, that was it.

"We can provide precious metals, fine textiles-"

The elbow was almost enough to crack her sore ribs, and was definitely enough to elicit a small squeak of pain. Oh, come on. Tobok stared at her, eyes narrow, frame hunched and tense. His face was absolutely deadpan, completely serious and stoic. Oh. Oh dear.

"Do not insult me by offering prices for guest-right. Guest-right is free. You ought to know that."

Crumbs.

"I do not take insults lightly."

Crud.

A bowl of milk was thrust in front of her.

"You will need to drink more in order to make up for this insult. You are too sober."

This was somehow worse. Half-rancid alcoholic warm milk. Sometimes she got clots, it was like drinking alcoholic cottage cheese. Just... weird. Anyway. She slurped some down, glad that she wasn't going to get her head crushed open. The thing on the fire... now she was closer, she could see that was... definitely animal skin. Had the right texture. But why was it on the fire? Why was it full? And why... oh. Oh. They cooked the organs in the skin. That was...

Uh...

She had no words. Still figuring out how things worked, so... best to keep an open mind.

She just wished her stomach would play along with that philosophy, it was rebelling at the mere thought of consuming offal cooked in a bag of animal skin on a fire. No sign of seasoning... oh, good heavens...

Wait. Hold on.

She leant forwards, and the intensity of her stare froze the large man in place.

"Tell me about these clans."

She was feeling...

Scholarly.