Topic: The GrevShar

TeRa Vash

Date: 2012-07-17 13:06 EST
Running of the Horses

To the south of RhyDin, on the island The GrevShar people call Shatra, it was the time of year for The Running. The Running, an annual event has been held without fail for over fifteen hundred years and one from each of the families are expected and indebted to participate.

There were hundreds of GrevShar families known to exist after the Hukszaen, a great war among the people that sent them to all area of RhyDin's glob ? and further beyond that. By the lore keeper, Taveress, there were precisely seven seventeen clans that had splintered from the Great Family that day so long ago.

And it looked like most of them were already on Shatra when TeRa Vash arrived. She was the Legacy-Bearer of The Vash people. Only by birth and only since she was the only child that her mother and father had born into the world was it that she came to be the bearer.

She stepped off of her sola-sail skimmer that she had sailed in on from the extreme, north-eastern reaches of RhyDin. The ship was not a large one, but it was hers. Its lithe craftsmanship was slender and long with room enough to two grown people comfortably beneath its deck. A tall, pike of a mast was little more than a needle against the sea and horizon.

The sails that took the heat and light of the sun and not the wind alone to power it were down and fasted to its cross crosspoles securely.

TeRa had said many times that she thought that The Running was a waste of time and that is was an event full of traditions and ways of a bygone era. But secretly, she enjoyed it. It wasn't for the bickering and blades being drawn with the thread of bloodshed. It certainly wasn't to meet babies and wives and husbands brought to introduce these next generations to everyone.

She stood on the stone pier and tied the solar sail skimmer to a thick, iron loop at its end. TeRa was dressed more like a GavShar male than one of the women. She wore a leather vest over a shirt with long sleeves that billowed and several, thin, layered collars of cloth about the neck.

The ties on both the shirt and vest were undone to a few inches below her neckline. Leather britches were tucked into knee high boots and a belt of thick banded and scrolled work was buckled about her waist. She carried on it a sheathed dagger, coil of leather, coil of rope, a simply but sturdily made flail-stick of leather and wood, and a pouch for coins, herbs, and other small things.

TeRa Vash

Date: 2012-07-17 13:13 EST
"Tul Vaytra, Vash TeRa!"

Bent over a little from mooring the skimmer close to the stone pier, TeRa stood. Her face was scarred in two places but she was not considered ugly or plain among her people. Thin strips of tight braids hung down with unbraided hair about her shoulders. Stone beads clattered when she threw her right arm up and pressed it palm forward against the hot summer wind.

"Tul Vaytra, Urst Tymion!" TeRa greeted Tymion formally and as close as she was coming to ritual after sailing on the skimmer for days. She grinned at the tall, bald headed and war battered man who was lumbering his way like at her like an ox.

Tymion grabbed her into a crunching hug and dropped her back down, holding onto her by the shoulders to give a good, firm shake as if it were part of the hug. "I did not think you were coming, little cousin! I'm glad you did."

She patted his bear paw like hand and stepped away so that he wouldn't hug her again like that so soon. Laughing and shaking her head to make her stone-ended braid make noise. "Am I not a Vash' Am I not the Legacy-Bearer?" Strides took her away from her skimmer and to the land. The stillness of the land felt strange beneath her feet. "I am obligated to be here. As are you."

He shrugged and grinned at her. "I think you are the only one that gets that sour look on their face to have to show up at The Running, TeRa."

"And what is there to be grinning about' It is hot. There are hour of ceremony to go. Sweating, mud, smelling of horses, and the horses I win do not even go to me. They go as lore-gifts to my mother and father." She made a sour face, on purpose just for him.

"Come. We ride together today. But first, by sister has had a baby and you must come see him!" Raucously, he laughed and put his arm about shoulder to guide her along.

"Another one?" TeRa groaned and went with him. It was going to be a very, very long day.