You stride forward and tap her gently on the nose, and walk past her. "Lighten up, relax. There's no crisis, right?"
You pause for a second, and turn back.
"Right?"
"No, no. Everything is fine, as much as it ever is." She heaves a long sigh. "I just don't understand celebrating before anything's actually... changed. Look, good Spirit-"
"Enko, please." You give a bright smile of faintly glowing-hot teeth.
"Ah - Enko. That's fine." You can read surprise and confusion radiating off her in waves. "If you really want a name, that's the least we can do. But I want to explain..."
She leans against the fitted-stone wall of the meeting hall and looks you in the eyes, blue to amber. "It isn't easy to live out here. We don't have the tools they trade in the cities, we don't have reliable irrigation outside the river shore. Sometimes the harvest is plentiful, sometimes bugs eat almost everything. And worst of all," - at this she looks down - "we've been at the mercy of any soldiers that pass through. They believe you will change all of that. I'll be honest, and say I don't understand how, but I trust them. Does that make sense?"
You nod, and you do understand. As she mentioned each point, you saw flashes of crisis - flooded fields, an empty larder, and the point of a sharp sword swinging - bringing the concept home to you. These people needed you.
"Feryi. I'm the village shaman. That's mostly providing medicine, advice, and comfort to people in hard times. I'm not a Sorcerer, so you don't have to worry about that." You're not sure what a Sorcerer is, but she doesn't elaborate before she's off, leading you outside.
The glare of the morning sun sweeps upwards from the valley, spread out below the hill the meeting house was built apon. Far north, you can see the winding river that carved the valley, and fields extending outward from it's southern bank where the town's road connects with it. Numerous dwellings are clustered along the road near the fields, some small, some large. Tiny figures move out in the field and between the homes, their auras like little embers in the sunlight.
"Everything is built around the river, Sierties. It floods every year, depositing good soil to be worked. It's a lot of work to till, but it means we get better yields than any other villages around here. Because we generally have good harvests, people have time for other pursuits." The two of you walk down the central road, walking past a trio of massive two-story buildings formed from mud brick. "Those are the clan homes. Our founding families - the Verces, the Fasali, and the Yiti - built them up over time as they bore more children. The Yiti are already outgrowing theirs. They'll have to add a third floor soon, I've heard it's more barracks than bedrooms." (She hides a giggle behind her sleeve.)
You continue, your bare feet leaving no mark in the dust of the path. She leads to a large, sprawling workshop, tables cluttered with urns, amphorae, and vases in various stages of completion, with a massive kiln built from closely fitted stones attached to the side. She points out the short, chubby lady loading wood into the furnace.
"Liapa is our potter. She's been doing this since she was a little girl, and she's never lost her habit of leaving her work half-finished. Every time her workshop got flooded, she'd take it as an excuse to add more tables to cram things onto."
Her voice drops to a low tone. "She's been having an affair with the patriarch of the Verces. It's been a decade, at least - everyone knows by now, but nothing seems to change. It's a disaster just waiting to happen, if you ask me."
You're not really sure why she's telling you this. Some part of you idly wonders if you've made the humans too comfortable around you.
Your guide points out a few more features - the communal farmer's housing around the river shore, the few independent huts of the freshly-migrating poor, and the watermill along the shore. (She explains that it's abandoned every flood, and reclaimed once the water level has dropped.) You're taken back up towards the meeting hall, and this time along a road to the east, shaded by the mountains.
"All the way down this path is one of the better copper mines in the Territory. It's abandoned most of the year, but during flood season we have enough free workers to delve and dig up everything we need for tools, and a bit more for export."
You're upon the forge itself - a squat dome carefully constructed from mud brick, with a huge fire blazing away at the center... You have to restrain yourself from wanting to run over and feel it directly.
"We have to import the tin for proper bronze, though. That comes in down in the market plaza." She motions southward, towards a mass of people and pack animals clustered on a flat slab of stone, built from cobbles pressed into the earth. They're surrounded on all sides by two and three story silos, built from the same mud brick as most of the village.
"It looks like there's a caravan in town today, actually. Usually there wouldn't be so many of them - it must be a group passing through on their way to a city, stopping along their way."
You notice two things, looking down at the plaza. Firstly, that unlike your own people, you can't sense any auras from these visitors. Secondly, the auras of your own, even faint from this distance, give off a definite feeling of distress and concern.
"That's the extent of our community. There's a lot more in the valley, but this is our home. And, I suppose," she nods slowly, "yours." She turns to head back home, unconcerned. "If you would like, I can show you how to see the rest of the valley?"
How do you proceed?
(Wow, I really have a problem with anxiety around writing. It's hard to settle on a final draft... But I hope this turned out alright despite the probably excessive length.)
Author
Topic: Guardian Spirit - Learn, Protect, Love (Read 2331 times)