“If you bow to me one more time, I really will take offense,” Raika grumbles as Ko-es digs his forehead into the mat for the third time. “I can swear an oath on my honor if need be that I have no intention of killing you for speaking out of turn if that’s what it takes.”

“This one would never force the great and honorable to-”

“Enough. Sit upright, look me in the eyes, and stop kowtowing please.”

The ‘please’ actually seems like the thing to get through to him. Whatever mindset he’s in or thinks of her, asking ever so politely isn’t in his list of expected responses. He kind of stutter-stops, and she nods once, happy with the outcome. Before he can figure out whatever it is that he wants to say, she turns to the human.

“I’ve… never heard it called the end of the world before, but yes, I do come from the west, past the Wall. I assume that’s what you mean?”

“I- yes?” the human says, some of her leader’s borderline psychic assault of a glare getting through to her. “I… well, the world goes on forever, but if you head towards the middle, you find the end of it. A great and impassable cliff which spews monsters and fire and strange soldiers that kill any who get close. Some people say that this is the portal to another world, from which devils and Daemons emerge, but that’s kind of dumb, cause there’s plenty of Daemons out in the world, and-”

“What my junior means to say,” Ko-es interrupts, “is that the colloquial name for that landmark is to call it the end of the world. No one who travels through it ever makes it back except in legends. Of course there’s something behind it, but not anything we lessers might know; such things are for our seniors and the greater powers, not for lowly sand-trawlers.”

“Which leads neatly into my next question. Why are you three traveling through this wasteland, so close to a place that no one ever comes back from?”

Ko-es goes to kowtow again, and thinks better of it when he gets a good look at her face. He awkwardly shuffles instead, clearing his throat a bit. “Well, this one- that is to say, we, are couriers. We take messages and goods across the hungering sands. Between the north, the south, the east, and the far-west, around the rim of the world’s end, or your… ‘Wall’, everyone wants things, but it takes time to circle all the way around the world in a ring. The closer one cuts towards the ‘Wall’, the faster one can move between the great territories. It’s risky, but it pays well, and my family has been trawling these sands for centuries. We know the tricks to search for sleeping sands, what formations last longest for rest, how much enchantment and Qi one is allowed to bring. Without a technique, the brighter your power, the hungrier the sands.”

Raika nods. She has no reason to distrust them, but still the explanation tracks. If one can be detected by the sands through Qi, then her lack of meridians and cursed skin must work as something of a convenient disguise, and it also explains why those with such low cultivation would be wandering somewhere so absurdly dangerous. Ko-es’ mention of the sands “sleeping” also ties into the areas she notices with the least amount of activity in them, where the Qi is quietest. And in theory, if one could survive here, it would make for a good training ground to master some particularly violent Daos.

“Thank you for your candor and sincere answers,” she says. “I do have more questions, but it’s clear that you’re all looking to rest on your journey. I have only a direction I intend to head in, and no distinct destination- are you heading eastward?”

Ko-es nods, though he seems particularly hesitant. A courier revealing their destination can be a boon or a curse, after all.

“South-eastward, honored one. We hoped to use the hungering sands to skirt the east, down towards the forever-burning, and then loop back west on our journey. If it so please you, we would be more than happy to guide you in your chosen direction.”

She shakes her head. “No need for that. We can do a trade- I’ll help carry you, spare your carpet and boots a bit of wear, and you tell me more about the locations and factions near here. When our paths diverge, then they diverge, and we’ll wish each other well. Does that sound agreeable?”

He hesitates. Any gift from a powerful cultivator is as much threat as gift, and Ko-es seems faintly terrified of her, even more than before now that he doesn’t have a formula for her behavior. She can smell the fear on him, a sort of cold and practical dread- but the two on either side come off a bit differently.

The human is starry-eyed to put it simply. She seems a mix of awed and terrified, and seems to be reacting to the terror in the ways one might expect from a thrill-seeker. The four-legged individual, the one who hasn’t spoken yet, comes off-

Huh.

They’re… quiet.

They have all the same scents. There’s no special thing missing, not from sight, sound or smell, but for some reason they just come off as silent, like there’s little behind those things. Their heartbeat shifts subtly, but the meaning behind it feels… muffled.

Hmm.

“Before you say yes or no,” Raika says, interrupting Ko-es’ thoughts, she gives her best attempt at a calming smile. She sits up properly, readjusting to the fresh removal of her left arm, a stylistic choice she still feels weirdly firm about.

“My name is Raika the Unbroken. I am a warrior, a learner of moderate talent, kin to beasts and blood. I request your names, that we might greet each other properly.”

Ko-es gulps, but he’s the first to respond. He bows again, though he wisely avoids a full kowtow.

“I am Ko-es, son of Gur-es, daughter of Kai-er. I am a traveler, courier, and a lowly merchant.”

Before either of the others can hesitate, he gives a very pointed look at the human to his left.

“Oh! Uh, I- sorry. I’m Kim Ya-ji. I’m… an apprentice courier?”

Ko-es nods at that, but… he turns to look at Raika expectantly, making no move to prompt or introduce the figure on his right.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

She cocks an eyebrow, and to his credit, he picks up on the question quickly.

“Ah, I- I apologize, honored one. It is custom to respond only in the language spoken by one whose strength surpasses the rest. My companion cannot speak the common tongue of merchants, or many of the languages which require a tongue at all. They are an old friend, whose name-”

“What languages do they speak?” Raika interrupts.

Ko-es hesitates. “I… I am not sure to a grand and total number, honored Raika, but they are a half-blooded beastkin. The bestial tongues come easier to their kind than phonetics, and-”

Raika interrupts again, though not with words. She lets Ko-es keep talking, turning herself slightly toward the third member of this group, and… pushes.

It’s hard to describe otherwise, but she shifts her intent, changing body language into something deeper. She remembers speaking to the many-tusked boar, to the cyclopean predator outside the bamboo perimeter a few months prior- their biology and movements spoke, even though they weren’t quantitatively different than that of most animals. And she could understand them, and speak back.

She takes that experience and shifts, ever so slightly, in the direction of the four-legged beast kin.

Speak?

All four of the individual’s limbs spasm, ever so slightly, clutching at the rug beneath them. Ko-es flinches, clearly shocked, his fear for the carpet and towards Raika making his and Kim Ya-ji’s reactions sharper than they need to be.

Raika just raises a hand, motioning for them both to sit. To stay. She pulls back, ever so slightly, altering the “pitch” of what she sends towards the beast-kin.

Calm. Danger = No. Curiosity.

There is a pause where she’s uncertain if the creature might bolt. The quiet of its biology, the lack of intent or meaning behind its intricacies, feels strained, like it’s just waiting to say something in a language that is more action than language.

And then…

Acquiesce, it says. Threat = None. Afraid.

Ok. Ok, that’s something.

Slowly, the beast-kin raises itself up. One limb, quadruple-jointed and topped with a mix between a paw and a hand, rises up to remove the hood from the creature’s head.

Beneath the hood is a mane of fur, a human head of hair turned to a hundred braids and wrapped tightly along a long, slender throat. The face itself is somewhat human, but it possesses eyes that are more along the sides than facing forward, like that of a prey-evolved organism, and they are both a bright, almost startling blue.

And, as Ko-es indicated, there is no human mouth. It is a mix between a muzzle and a snout, extending out from the face and making a canine-like jaw.

Raika smiles softly, making sure that no teeth are displayed. Some things don’t need weird mental gymnastics to come off as a threat in animal terms, and a display of her fangs would go over fairly quickly no matter how she “phrased” it. She tilts her head.

This = Language? Beast? She asks.

Agreement. Acknowledge. Speech-Without-Word. Language-Without-Symbol.

Raika blinks, tilting her head. It’s a little hard to parse, but she sends back a note of confusion and a request.

The beastkin hesitates, and then…

Intent. All-Speak.

Hmm. Curious.

“Can you understand me if I speak like this?” she asks.

The beastkin sends back, in the pattern of their breath and blood flow, something like “kinda-sorta”.

“How about like this?” she asks, this time in the more musical and throaty notes of Truespeak. Dink, on her collar, vibrates slightly at the sound.

The beastkin’s eyes widen, and it immediately bows so low that it makes Ko-es’s kowtow look like a joke. It very nearly splays itself, limbs spread out wide and face digging into the rough carpet. Despite the severity of the movement, it sends back only one “word”, one burst of intent.

Lord.

“Ok, no, none of that,” Raika says, noting the looks of surprise on Kim Ya-ji’s and Ko-es’ faces. Rise, she sends through intent, and the beastkin does so without an ounce of hesitation. It’s ‘voice’ is loud now, the muffled control of what must be the language they’re ‘speaking’ suddenly shifted to something like a loud buffer of static- joy, fear, devotion, confusion, pride, elation, all mixed and matched in a face with no mouth and a body that speaks through meaning as much as direct action.

You = Calm, she sends, and the beastkin does its best, shifting to an upright seating on all four limbs and forcibly slowing the intent around its heart. Name Request.

It sends back, alongside a thrill of joy- Many-Grasping-Young-Of-Harsh-Lands-Reaching. Which is, one might notice, quite a long name. Many-Grasping, for short, seems elated at the question, as if sharing their name with her is some sort of absolute privilege.

“Ok. So I now have more questions, as I’m sure you do, but-”

“You can speak beast?” Kim Ya-ji yells, before Ko-es turns on her so fast that she squeaks, a look of horror on his face.

“Of course the honored one can speak any language she so chooses,” he hisses, “and it would be the height of disrespect to interrupt them again.”

Raika laughs, enjoying the reaction despite herself. It’s grating, true, but the extreme whiplash of Ko-es’ movements is rather entertaining to watch.

“I would appreciate if you didn’t do it again,” Raika says, “but it’s not so big a deal that I’m going to punish you for it. Consider me a fortuitous encounter, not a danger to you. And it would seem that I can “speak beast”, as you put it, though I doubt that’s the best way to phrase that.”

Ko-es gives out a defeated sort of huff. “It’s not. Beast-speak is a vague term that means very little. Most who actually try to learn it call it the speech-without-word, and it’s… well, hard to explain.”

“It’s about intention, right?” she asks. “Sending meaning into things that don’t necessarily have any.”

He blinks, looking at her. “I- yes, wise one, that’s not a bad way to put it. I speak only enough to be understood, not-”

“Understanding you is the easy part. Sending out meaning. Not easy, but still the easy part- I assume that your traveling companion understands you just fine. It’s understanding others that’s hard.”

“...just as you say, wise one.”

She nods. “Alright then. If it’s alright with you three, I will happily reconfirm my offer. For a few questions and a bit of conversation, I’ll carry you safely to the point where our paths diverge. Agreed?”

Many-Grasping seems like he (or they?) doesn’t give a rat’s ass what Ko-es is about to say, already sending out notes of agreement, but Kim Ya-ji, for all her excitement, does hesitate. She looks over at the would-be leader of their group, eyes wide and pleading.

And he gives out a quiet, near-inaudible little sigh.

“Yes, honored one. I think that would be most agreeable.”

She smiles, again keeping teeth unexposed. “I’m glad to hear it.”

The three start to pack up their things, moving quickly to store their would-be tribute and prepare their supplies. Due most likely to their experience, their camp is packed in under a minute, and Raika forms a set of stairs out of bone and metal, leading towards a tasteful veil and into a corridor of chitin and glowing flesh.

And as she goes to reabsorb the body she’s presenting with back into her main mass, she notices something. Splitting off a new mind to keep track of and interact with her new guests, and inform Li Shu of the changes, she turns her central focus off towards the west, in the direction she came from.

It’s distant. More than a day’s journey away, perhaps. By all rights, her senses shouldn’t be picking up anything at all, especially not over the din of the far-off battles on the Wall.

But… there’s still something there. Something sent through the world in a language without words.

Intent. Feels like there’s more to explore there, just as there’s more to explore with her biology and her learning / techniques. Because by rights, no intent should be carried without the actions and movements it is connected to. But a distant glow of meaning, colored orange-yellow of energy-joy and bright red of violence in her synesthesia, is radiating towards her anyways from an unknown source. It’s meaning, by definition, could not be more clear.

Play!