ꙮ On the Beast, you got a handle, fairly quickly, on when was ‘noon’ and when was ‘ass o’clock in the morning’ and – and so on, and so forth. In the City, under its unfamiliar and unfriendly light, it’s harder– but there’s still tricks, you learn. There are patterns of bells that chime from a white structure near the Temple at certain times, and you think you’ve picked up the pattern to it, or at least, you’re starting to. Enough to know that it’s past noon - people are going about their day, heading from the City out into the fields fanning out in its leeward side, reclaimed from the desert, getting hippalectria summoned for them if their work’s to take them out far enough to need one.
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#awoken
#got milk?
takes one last look up and behind himself to remember which building it is they were situated in and nods in affirmation. He then turns forward and slides his dark goggles over his eyes, because this direct sun, and how it reflects off of the sand, is no frickin’ joke.
hisses through his teeth. “(Already want a drink…)”
starts off towards a fountain, but is also itching to ask anyone who dares to meet his gaze (not that they’d be able to directly tell, due to the goggles), about more local drinks. Sort of. It’s water. Really. You’ll understand if he opens his mouth about it!
ꙮ There’s a decent amount of people– well, they’re not ambling. In the Bazaar in Queenstown, they’d be ambling, but nobody’s spending much more time outdoors than they absolutely need to. Still, there’s a guy with vivid green eyes and that’s about all you can see of his face because of the deep blue tagelmust he’s wearing, but his eyes meet yours– it’s his best guess, but usually goggles are where peoples eyes go, so it’s a good guess on his part! He nods amiably. “Good shade to you, far-wanderer.”
shifts his goggles up since he was addressed. “Hey there! Good shade to you, uh, near-lifer!”
: “My name’s Awoken! Does anyone do anything special with the water around here?”
: “The fountains are incredibly refreshing, yes!”
: “Just. Y’know. Something different? Sparklier? Sweeter? Pure-er?”
ꙮ The guy tilts his head to the side– a little bit at the name given, like he just used a word as a name that he’d expect to hear in a wildly different context, because that’s true and definitely what just happened, but also at the question! And then he grins, and you can hear it in his voice, even though you can’t see it. “Oh, you’re looking for lemonade, aren’t you? Come on, come with me–“ –and he motions for the Awoken to follow him down the street a ways. There’s a large, well-lit, well-traveled building with a doorway painted in bright red and white enamels, some kind of intricate geometric design that, you feel certain, carries some kind of obvious meaning if you’ve been here your whole life, and just sort of looks pretty, if you haven’t.
: “Hey, lemonade! That’s a great start!” He allows himself to be led, light in his step.
ꙮ Once he’s in through the doors, and only then, does the guy undo his tagelmust, which is a whole Process in and of itself involving a bunch of ornate pins holding fabric in place getting undone and then done up again so he doesn’t accidentally poke himself with anything– there’s a roomy vestibule that looks like it’s specifically FOR this kind of thing, and there’s a couple other people in the process of either gearing up or gearing down, entering or leaving - and a sweep of translucent silk passing for a threshold into the establishment proper. You can hear laughter, chatter, someone’s playing a thin reedy instrument with some light drum accompaniment– and eventually he’s got enough of it off to beam delightedly at the Awoken. He’s got a dark tan, and sandy blond hair that’s kind of mussed up from his headgear. “Alright, that’s better. The name’s Orrin. You’re– you’re really from Afar, that’s. God be good.” A brief, astounded silence. “Alright, alright, lemonade.”
: “Oh, yup!” He removes his goggles, lowers his hood, shrugs his shoulders a bit against the fabric of his garb. “Definitely not from Mu. My comrades and I are planar travellers!”
ꙮ He shakes his head in continued astonishment, and a little awe. “You must have such stories to tell! But, oh–“ -and he gestures, again, for the Awoken to join him at something that’s fairly recognisably a bar in the establishment, except it’s inordinately well-decorated; the surface of the bar is a burnished gold, intricately engraved with swirling, sweeping patterns, so fine you almost have to touch it to notice they’re there. “Two lemonades, please, my friend here’s never had one, can you believe that–“ –and the bartender, an older woman with an odd iridescent nodule on her scalp around which she’s painted an intricate henna pattern, nods sharply and smiles, and goes about her Work.
: “It’s gotta be good to beat the heat!”
ꙮ ”Oh, just wait.” You get the impression this guy, like, spends all day waiting for Lemonade Time. Or maybe he’s just really enthusiastic? After a moment, the bartender sets down two glasses, one for each of them, filled with some kind of incredibly fizzy, slightly translucently white beverage.
lifts his glass. “Any salutation?”
ꙮ ”To good shade and comfort!” A couple of other people nearby call out “Shade and comfort!”, and raise their glass. The lemonade is… it’s incredible? There were definitely Real Actual Lemons used in its production at some point, but they must have been the sweetest lemons on all the planes; it’s not too sweet or too sour, and it is, as advertised, remarkably refreshing.
drinks, and drinks, and drinks… did he down the glass in one go? He did! He leans forward onto the bar with a “Phe—————-w!” and a satisfied sigh.
: “I think I need another!”
ꙮ Orrin laughs in delight. He’s savoring his, but in just a moment there’s another lemonade put in front of the Awoken, and a smile from the bartender. “They’re good, aren’t they?”
: “It’s saturating every nerve ending that’s been fried by the sun. Which is a lot of ‘em, by the way.”
ꙮ A soft snort. “I’d say you get used to it, but the God frowns on lies.”
: “Oh yeah? What’s the God’s likes, dislikes, and blood type?”
ꙮ You get the distinct impression that at LEAST one of those questions was Lightly Blasphemous, but he plays it really cool. “Ach, friend, that’s a question for the Yazhn if ever there was one. But I know the God loves truth and hates lies, and I’ve always had a personal suspicion He’s got an inordinate fondness for fruit trees.” There are a remarkable number of pins and brooches on his burnoose that look sort of like leafy branches, aren’t there?
: “Hmm…!” He conspicuously inspects those pins and brooches.
: “A deity’s favor in both grace and fondness, eh?”
ꙮ Orrin notices that the Awoken’s noticed ‘em, and shifts around on the barstool so that he can see every last one of ‘em! “So, the truth is, there’s a good chance I’ve looked after the trees that gave us these lemons. Stands to reason the lemonade’s my favourite.”
: “Hey, after tasting it, it’d be a lie to say that the lemonade couldn’t be anyone’s favorite.”
: “You’ve done an excellent job, Orrin!” He lifts his refreshed glass of lemonade in thanks, and only takes a small sip this time.
: “What else is really grown around here? I’m more familiar with more temperate farming and ranching… technically speaking.”
: “(Although those gulab jamun are… mmm!)”
ꙮ He raises his glass, takes another sip of his own. Looks like he’s thinking of questions he’s always wanted to ask a Traveler from Afar but then again he’s never really even considered the possibility, so he’s got a lot of rotating to do, and then the Awoken asks him a question anyways, answers are easier– “Well, there’s all the trees. Orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit, pomelo, etrog. Any kind of citrus you could imagine, and then some you can’t. Pomegranate, nashi… figs and dates, of course.” Of course. Obviously! “And then grains – the fields closest to the City mostly grow barley, oats, and millet, but they’re experimenting with some new cultivars in some of the further fields. The Vehru introduced one, oh, a couple thousand years ago, I think?”
: “What a cornucopia of treasures! Are there beasts of burden about, besides the humans and kin?”
ꙮ He looks mildly scandalised to hear either humans or Kin described in such a way, but in an amused kind of way. “Well, do the hippalectria and other Orichalca count? And there’s shades, of course, but they do what they want to do. There’s one that likes hanging out by my favourite stand of trees, staring at a particular fruit until someone harvests it. Swear I’ve seen it standing there for weeks at a time.” He shakes his head, laughing.
: “I suppose they do, and– okay, what is the deal with the shades? I’ve seen one, but you say there’s more?”
rotates about on his bar stool, leaning his back against the bar.
ꙮ He gives a big, languid shrug. “They’re just… there? Sometimes– like, if a bunch of big burly Gorhn are carrying around big heavy slabs of marble from place to place working on building something, sometimes a shade’ll come along and pick one up too and join the procession like they belong there? More often than not, honestly. They seem to like bein’ helpful. But they’re pretty weird.”
: “Huh! Well, bein’ weird isn’t a crime, so good on ‘em!”
ꙮ He nods, definitively, and takes a sip of his lemonade.
: “What’s a Gorhn?” He sips his lemonade, almost in sync.
ꙮ ”Oh, the Gorhn are one of the Kin clades. They’re the Builders, or sometimes the ‘Left Arm’. A long, long time ago, the Gorhn were the ones who built the City itself, apparently. Now they help build out-Temples and shelters and irrigation channels, things like that. Couldn’t do any of my Work without ‘em.”
: “Interesting. I didn’t know there were different divisions of kin.”
says this in a, ‘I would like to know more,’ sort of tone.
ꙮ He leans forward, and holds out all five fingers. “Well, yeah! There’s the Gorhn, I mentioned those.” He puts one fingers down. “Then there’s the Rohsu, our Shield. The ‘Right Arm’. They keep us safe against the Elementals that roam the desert, and help claim land for the Work.” Another finger. “And then the Vehru, our ‘Heart’. Most of the time, they’re the ones you’re gonna be dealin’ with? They help make sure we know what kinds of crops we need each year, make sure everyone’s got food and water, comfort and shade.” Another finger. “Then there’s the Zvahr, the ‘Eyes’. You go to them if you wanna know about something that happened a long time ago. There was a date-palm blight that the Elementals somehow perpetrated, a couple of centuries back, and they still had the cure written down and knew just how to make it.” One more finger. “And then there’s the Yazhn. They’re the ones that know the most about the God and the Work. If you’re… lost, or confused, or if you’re really sick… they’re who you want to talk to.”
: “Ah yeah, a few of my comrades are becoming quite intimate with a few of the Yazhan.” He nods sagely.
: “But… hmm…”
: “The hippalectria I’ve met and rode upon– are they Orichalca? What’s an Orichalca, anyway? Like, specifically. (I was gonna guess and use context clues, but there ended up being a lot of proper nouns.)”
ꙮ He nods! “Any time you see one of the Kin draw a big circle in the air made out of light and pull something marvelous out that seems alive–“ –he’s definitely just talking about ‘fiends’.
: “Hmm…”
: “Okay. I’ll go all out, then.”
takes a fortifying drink of lemonade, and then leans in toward Orrin.
: “What kind of cheeses do you have?”
ꙮ He blinks and leans right back towards the Awoken Prince, like a co-conspirator, and whispers, “(What’s a ‘cheese’?)”
scrunches up his lips, and then leans back.
: “Okay.”
: “So first you take a… milk-creating being.”
: “Then you milk them.” He pantomimes his hands around half-spheres, and then squeezes the air.
ꙮ He blinks in further confusion and holds up a hand, immediately. “(Second question. What’s a ‘milk-creating being’.)”
: “…”
’s eyes shift left and right, then he takes another drink of lemonade.
: “Wow, okay. Okay, let me back up a lot here.”
: “So, I said, ‘beasts of burden’ a little while back.”
: “And, on other planes, a common technique for sustenance is taming and training bipedal and quadrapedal creatures who are perceived to at least have sentience, and maybe some of them have sapience, I’m not really sure… there might be some?”
: “I haven’t run into any sapient creature who makes their own cheese, but I mean… one place left to go, but anyway–“
: “Anyway, they are tamed and trained to work the land, not… entirely unlike you do, and in some regards, some of these creatures are also butchered and carved for their hides, meat, and bones for further food, tools, and garb.”
: “I mean… I don’t think most humans make for particularly good eats, or make a decent vest, and their bones aren’t much to write home about, so you’re safe among us, but ANYWAY–“
ꙮ He looks a little bit horrified at the prospect of killing and carving up and eating a living thing but he’s, again, being very cool about it. They just… do things different, on the other planes, and that’s okay! He takes the second comment as a joke, and will have nightmares about it and/or ask a Yazhn some very strange questions… later. Sometime later.
: “So as part of the reproduction cycle of some of these beings, they have organs that sometimes swell but generally produce milk, a base form of sustenance that their offspring consume in their growing days, weeks, months, years, whatever.”
: “And now that I say that out loud it’s really strange to me that I got to that point and you haven’t stopped me with a ‘yeah no I know this part.’”
ꙮ He blinks, again. The foundations of his world are shifting. How inefficient and precarious life must be on these travelers’ planes! He’s still smiling cheerfully, though. But it’s definitely not a cheerful smile of anything remotely like recognition. Brightly, “That’s because this is all very new to me!”
looks around the bar for something specific. Someones specific. Well-endowed someones.
ꙮ Well, there’s the bartender. She catches the Awoken’s glance, immediately misinterprets it, and gives him a pleasant wink.
: “Right, like, the milk would come from here-“ And he points directly at her chest. “Thought it could come from here too-“ and he points at his own. “I think? It’s under specific conditions, but usually it’s from nyah-“ he makes a noise while pointing at her “-and not so much nyah.” pointing at himself.
ꙮ ”Wait. Wait wait wait. Hold on.”
ꙮ He holds up a hand and then takes a fortifying sip of his lemonade. “You’re telling me… that where you come from… people are ‘milk-creating beings’…?” He blinks. “Is that. Is that where ‘cheese’ comes from, is–“ He takes another, desperate, sip of lemonade; the bartender gives him a second glass without asking.
: “I suppose technically speaking… yes! But they aren’t also usually utilized as such, only for their own young.”
: “Also no no, that’s where the milk comes from.”
: “There’s a process of turning milk into cheese.”
: “What do you feed kids around here, anyway?”
: “Not even kids, babies?”
ꙮ His lemonade, no matter how directly he addresses it, will not answer his question. Even if he stares. Slowly, and working from context clues, “The Vehru see to the needs of a new cohort as they’re being awoken and learning how to exist in the world.”
ꙮ ”Once a cohort is out and about in the world– even while they’re still at Temple, really– they eat the same sort of thing we eat every day. Or at least, I think I did? I don’t remember much after being awoken.” He scratches behind an ear.
: “Hmmm…” He thinks about it, but for not nearly as long as you might expect. Because a half-second later, he nods.
: “Makes sense!”
: “Life is wildly different sometimes!” he says cheerfully, taking another drink of lemonade.
ꙮ He nods, solemnly, and opens his mouth to ask a clarifying question and then immediately realises he’d be terrified of the answer, and instead he takes another sip of lemonade. Then he DOES say, “Do the Yazhn know how different things are, where you’re from?”
: “I think that’s a thing you’d have to ask them, yeah? But if we’ve told them anything about it… there’s a possibility, yeah. Wolf’s keen on one of the Yazhan, but sometimes he plays things close to the vest. My darling Salme would happily share information of her home. Aury too, not too unlike myself.”
: “Honestly, all of us are pretty easy to talk to.”
: “Myself the easiest!”
: “Just look at all we’ve learned, right?” He grins.
ꙮ He laughs, a little. He’s bewildered, sure, but the laugh is genuine. “I think you’ll get along well in the City! It’s good to teach one another things, even if those things seem wildly strange at first. That’s something the Yazhn told me, and it’s always been true for me so far, so…”
tilts his head this way and that.
: “Y’know this next question is much softer impact than everything else.”
: “But how do you keep food preserved? Are you able to freeze things?”
ꙮ He tilts his head to the side. “What do you mean?”
ꙮ ”I mean, we can cool things off with the proper application of gnosis, of course. That’s how we make any number of our most delicious and refreshing treats! There’s nothing like a coming into shade and being given a bowl of shaved ice drizzled with syrup… but I get the impression that’s not what you were asking.”
: “We keep various confections and proteins preserved in long-term cold storage.”
: “Turning all the moisture in the things to ice, for days or weeks.”
ꙮ ”But why would you freeze something that doesn’t need to be frozen? That affects the taste and texture dramatically!”
: “Such is the strangeness of other worlds! They possess vittles that do not stay unspoiled for overlong, and so require freezing for long-term preservation. I mean, it gets thawed out, and yeah it might lose some taste in the process, but sometimes, that’s how it goes.”
: “It’s not like everyone has access to a time-frozen hole in space where you can just put things and have them exist, unchanging, for millenia.”
ꙮ That one finally gets an unshielded confused stare out of the guy. Also, it’s a funny joke, because you guys have a Freshness Unit! Finally, he manages: “Oh. Where you come from… if you don’t eat food right away, or freeze it, it… stops being edible? That sounds awfully inconvenient. I’m sorry.”
solemnly nods. “That’s the tradeoff for being able to have milk and cheese, I wager.”
ꙮ He looks halfway horrified by the prospect of eating something that you squoze out of something that was or is alive, and halfway intrigued by these travelers’ new and strange and heretofore-unimaginable comestibles.