Topic: The Gusarin

Nejara

Date: 2017-06-09 00:04 EST
She had not stepped foot into Rhy'din proper in over a year. The last time, she had seen Scottie and it had warmed her heart to know that her friend remembered her and was doing well but all outward appearances.

Years gone and the place only touched her heart and mind to remember Grey Martel, her beloved. It had been wrong the way that the gods had stolen him from her. He had been killed and lay buried in Rhy'din. The sarcophagus was like many other stone coffins in the great burial crypts within the city's limits, but on the lid of it was a large, scrolling M and the markings of his house.

And each year that passed made it easier for her to put one foot in front of the other. Did any mourn their beloved so greatly as she did hers" Was it not time for her to release herself from her own suffering" Often she had told herself this. And the gods allowed her to breathe a little easier with each passing year.

That night, she had finally made her way back into Rhy'din. She did not head straight to the West End where Sid and Scottie readily had a place for her. But instead, she went to the Red Dragon Inn. It was her guess that not a single soul within the walls of the place knew her joy and pain that the building brought to her just to see it, to be within it.

The small woman found it much easier this time, though. Pain was dulled and far off in the distance when she found the place beneath the stairs where she had hidden his weapons, his grey short-coat, and his large wool winter cloak. Even his chair was where she sat and settled into for a while speaking to another.

Majicks were still the norm within the infamous walls of the Red Dragon. They still make her heart beat fast and her skin alive with goose-flesh and fear to know it was so near. And yet she found herself brave enough to linger.

As she finally made her way to a room upstairs, above the inn's common room, she pulled the two ribbons from her black hair. The ribbons had been a gift from Scottie. He had always been generous and warm with her. Such a good friend.

She could not explain how the years had not touched her. Perhaps it was that gift given by another so many years ago when healing her from the dagger cut on her forearm. Nejara still felt very much the same: gentile, shy, and pensive. But there was a hint of melancholy that he never left her heart when Grey had died.

A few had been met that night that made her smile. Mist was simply a happy person, it seemed. Icer was happy to have her scales buffed by him. And Andu had looked so much like Rhy'Saan that she remembered him and Basalt in the same breath quite easily.

Nejara smiled and placed the ribbons on the table in the room she rented that night at the Red Dragon. The length of cloth of the palla was allowed to slip from her shoulders. She caught it and draped it over the back of a chair that sat before a dormant little fireplace in the room. Only then did she remember she had left her sandals in the common room. She would get them the next morning.

It was time for sleep and the door was already latched well. She crawled into the bed with the grace of a dancer, without thought or presence of mind about it. She could not help but fall asleep to thoughts about Grey, Darius, TheWagHawk and his lovely lady, Scottie and Sid, of Axe and Tera...and even Ivory.

When she finally fell asleep, a smile was on her lips and the line of her brow was a gentle one.

Nejara

Date: 2017-06-09 13:46 EST
With the first hints of morning light, Nejara was awake and out of the bed. She made it well and fussed lightly with what was within the room she had rented at the Red Dragon the night before until it was as neat and tidy as when she had stepped foot in it.

She closed the door behind her before making a way down the steps to the common room. At the early hour, only a few were about still to tell tales of the night before. Strangers, all of them and so deep in their cups that it was possible they didn't know who they were either.

Nejara still gave a little smile to each person when she left the steps and turned to the wall that was part of the stairs that stretched from the common room upwards to the next level. She reached up and grasped the hook to the far right to pull on it hard. A sound thud could be heard. What looked like a part of the wall shifted and loosened so that she could push it open.

The little Guarsin woman reached into the dark to take out an old leather saddle back with an M on it. She crouched down to open it up and sift about within it. A few bits of copper, leather to repair her sandal with, and a tool of ivory to work the leather were withdrawn from the dust covered saddlebag.

When it was replaced, she closed the unknown compartment beneath the stairs. The items were put on the mantle for a little while so she could make some breakfast.

It was a good morning and the day promised the same.

Nejara

Date: 2017-06-09 18:50 EST
While many took rest, went off to visit those they knew nearby, or had finished their stay and were back on the road they had been travelling the day before, Nejara was taking the first steps of being back within the ebb and flow of the metropolis that could be as glorious and awe-invoking as it could be frightening.

She could not go far, she found, when she knew that one of her sandal straps was so worn that it would surely break with a few steps more. The journey on foot was long than she had remembered but she hadn't lost pace or way even once.

Gardent Fheor had insisted that she go by horse, but that would not have happened without much fuss from everyone from klaer to cjoi. Nejara knew her place well and kept to it so that she would not upset anyone. She wanted to be able to visit again many times over the years yet to come.

Half an hour had passed since she had come down from the room. A break-fast had been cooked, pheasants that had been left on the spit in the kitchen were turned a few times and removed to insure they would not burn before their owner returned.

She was entirely at ease upon her return to the Red Dragon after so long away from it. Bare-footed, she pranced about the kitchen and danced here and there to a rhythm her heart and body knew very well. The silks she wore were from the day before, russet below and diaphanous colorless gossamer over it. Their hems were haphazardly layered to flow about her hips and thighs. The garment was secured atop her shoulders with mere but sturdy bronze hoops that unfastened when she needed them to.

Gilt, bronze cuff about her wrist caught the light in a small twirl of form within the main room of the kitchen. There was no one to bother with the silliness of it and indulged herself. Gusarin melody, mercurial and soft was sung as she cooked the light break-fast of meats and cut up some fruit and cheese.

At one point she stopped and smile to pick up a few found almonds out of a bowl of nuts on a dry-shelf in the pantry. One was crunched on while her place was filled. A footed bowl of earth and metal was filled with wayfarer wine, diluted and not of the highest of quality. When she had the drink and food one a little platter she carried them out to the common room.

One of the tables with short legs and sitting pillows beside it was chosen, eased to with a look about the room to see if it was still empty. There it was that she worked to repair her sandal and continue with the song she was singing earlier.

Nejara

Date: 2017-06-10 10:28 EST
Spring had slipped into the Summer months in Rhy'din. With it came warmer days. Nejara did not stay in the room too long when there was so much to see and do within the markets. Repaired sandals were on her feet and silks of a paler shade of earth and sand were on flesh and bone that day. Spiced oils to olive hued flesh glistened in the early morning sun, keeping it supple and soft in work and place, in kneeling and dance. Her hair was long and wild in its course down hair painted back, except for the single intricate braid at the right side of her head from her temple to tip of lock; ended in a metal clasp.

On her mind were the events of the night before. Of the strangers met, spoken with. Helped. To help the one that been found in the closet and pulled out, thankfully, by Mesteno, had brought a bit of life back into her. What was life without purpose for one such as her? Dulcinea was thought on too. There was a strength in her that reminded Nejara of Sid, Scottie's beloved one. And Droet, too, was thought of. Wondered at as she stood at the market's very edge at the corner of a shop to see the start of a crowd there beyond the large, stone torches that marked its entrance. He had more than hinted an interest in her, beyond that of friends, but they had only met that night. Kindness had been shown to her and patience. All the thoughts were still with her as she took a deep breath and smiled.

All sorts of scents were on the air that day. Beyond the common rooms of taverns, beyond firepits of the Gusari tents, this was a kind of second-home. Her soul and heart were alive once again, happy and spirited on the wind at times. She had been in the markets to often over the years that she knew it well and not — all at the same time. Much there was familiar and fixed, but other things with tents, vendors, colors, sounds were strangers to her eyes and ears.

Smiling, she pressed on beyond its boundaries to with a joy of rediscovering it.

Nejara

Date: 2017-06-10 12:02 EST
Nejara smiled towards the merchants as she passed them. Towards some of the marketers, she looked with a curiosity of a stranger. The day was already warm, but not so much that she needed her palla to shield the sun from her face. Her sandals could be heard scuffing against the dirt and stones beneath while she walked.

Before one of the less-colorful stands she stopped. It was heavily laden at its top, sides and on both of its shelves. Hanging from top and sides were drying flowers and branches of leaves often used in cooking. Various sizes of woven baskets were brimming with vegetables and fruits of all kinds. She leaned in to smell some of the flowers and leaves of the bay bush that were there fresh-cut. A few of them were bought, to include a couple of carrots, mango, mint leaves, and thyme. In afterthought, she picked up a colorful thing that looked like it had soft 'barbs' on its outer skin: dragonfruit. Something new to try.

She smiled and paid for each of the things she had sparingly chosen from the stand. He was kind enough to put them into a cloth bag that looked to have once been used to hold flour or seeds. Her eyes lowered to the ground carefully as a few denizens and travellers of the lands passed very close to her. It was on all sides, it seemed and kept herself still. There was no time to retreat out of their way. When their paths continued on to other areas, her own resumed.

The majestic fountain was seen at the heart of the marketplace. At the top of the lively, babbling fixture that afforded not only beauty and tranquility with sight and sound of it, she saw the steadfast dragon of stone. Its wings were spread out as if frozen in the attempt to take flight from the highest portion of the fount. It was, to her, always a lovely thing to see.

At the base of the fountain, stone out-skirted it. It was there she settled down to rest, meeting her back to the cool outer wall of the fount and hearing the rush and flow of water just above. Her purchase were placed on the ground close enough to met with her silk-clad hip. She would remain a while, enjoying the sights and sounds, even the spiced air of the markets.

Nejara

Date: 2017-12-17 12:06 EST
Only a handful of times in all of Nejara's life could she recall sleeping until the sun's rays lit the morning sky. Two of those times she had been very ill and three others were the days she had lost someone so dear to her that it took time to pull herself out from under the weight of despair.

That morning, she had risen before the sun had started its sleep ascent. A bath had been drawn and given time to heat while she sat within the single, simple corner room of the Red Dragon Inne. The chair was placed beside the window that overlooked the street before for infamous establishment. She slowly pulled the brush of wood and boar hair through long, thick lengths of hers while she watched people and creatures coming and going by the mere lamp light on the street below. When that was finished, she stood and crossed the little room to a small, wooden box that was no larger than the span of three of her hands wide and two of them in long. It was opened long enough to replace the brush and select on of the bottle of scented oils from the rag cloth it was wrapped into keep it from clanking against the other two with the risk of breaking. It was what she used to keep her skin from being too dry in the heat of summer or the cold of winter.

Yelling was suddenly heard in the street outside. Black eyes that had flecks of gold in their them flicked a glance towards the window of glass that had designed of iron breaking up the time-affected panes. Her hand curled about the bottle of spice oil while she returned to that single window. The left side of the window met with that arm and shoulder while curious gaze sought another view of the road below. Two men were in fisticuffs, a larger man taking a rightly hooked closed fist to his left cheek and jaw just as Nejara looked to them. She flinched involuntarily. It was not often anymore that denizens and travellers in Rhy'din had cause enough to strike one another. The larger man dropped heavily. His expression that had been smug and bothered a fleeting moment before was one of stunned silence; blinking up at the younger man that had struck him.

She could not hear what was being said but noticed clearly enough that the one who had taken care of the man with one blow was then helping up an old man. Her smile was a gentle one to further witness him retrieving the older man's crooked cane and making certain it was in his hands before heading on a path through the city, to its south.

Nejara turned on the ball of her foot. The light of day was just starting to be seen on the horizon, merely above the rooftops of the many buildings of the metropolis. There was a bath to be had, to redress and to see herself to the kitchen and what might be found there to cook. The view through glass, wood, and iron could wait for another time.