Concavenator:
The light of the first day of spring was already dying. The newborn Sun had barely peeked above the horizon, throwing the red light of cooling coals on the peaks on the peaks of old mountains in the north. Seven more cycles would pass before the great light would have the strength to leave the horizon fully below, and take the year's first leap into the sky. Then the pale tundra would begin to bloom, and some rational life people the streets of Yakak'ratu.
Giya's house was nothing but the wedge-shaped space left between two walls of rough stone, belonging to a butchery and a carpenter's shop , covered by a dripping tent of sewn skins. The street before it was grey with trampled slush, frequently crossed by penguin herders with their chittering flocks.
In the shadow beneath the tent – Merciful 'Au'a, it was dry and free from drafts, at least – a tallow lantern threw yellowish light over a nest. It was large, and full of small cheeping figures custered around a larger silent one; it seemed to be made mostly of scraps of wood from the carpenter's shop, and piled dirt.
pinkgothic:
It was good that her thoughts were private, Kukri mused, for if they had not been she might have expressed some regret at coming here. It was not unbearable, nor even in the strictest sense shocking - existing somewhere in the permutations she had imagined she might bear witness to - but Kukri was obviously and embarrassingly out of place here.
Taking Giya away from such an obviously poor and wretched family seemed as unfair as denying her the opportunity to do some honest work. It was no good situation.
The question of what had cast them into this situation in the first place remained open, of course, and while Kukri had no plans to ask - it would be rude to be so frank about her curiosity - she worried that she might find out, or perhaps observe part of the reason, simply by being here, and that it would fester in her mind.
On reflection, it was a good thing, too, that Kukri was obviously out of place. That way there was no danger to these people of potentially having yet another mouth to feed, which would be a dire threat indeed.
Kukri remained silent, though lowering her head ever so slightly in a light gesture of token respect. She was used to the residents of a particular place having the prerogative to introduce any visitors; it did not occur to her that it was at least a possibility one might expect her to do so herself.
Concavenator:
Giya crouched at the threshold and greeted her father. She spoke fast in the local dialect, which might not have been entirely Chaatai, and which Kukri could understand only very sparsely. She caught the word “father”, and her own name followed by “Grikaa”, and then either “south” or “eight”.
Giya's father might have been drowsy with a combination of brooding and winter torpor, but other than that he seemed lucid. He listened to his daughter with deep attention, and turned great reddish eyes toward his guest. Nevertheless he remained silent. He unfolded a surpringly graceful arm, and pointed at a rug that lay on the ground at his right.
Most likely he wanted Kukri to sit beside him for a while.
All around lay scavenged implements of all sorts, chipped pots, cloudy bottles, tattered clothing, worn ragdolls; a sharpened metal shard leaned against a wall, perhaps intended as protection against the least merciful and least sensible of all thiefs. Boiled bones and weta peels lay on a bench; at the far end of the wedge, a dung-pit had been dug, and covered with wooden boards. Childlike figures had been scratched into the stone walls.
Two pairs of children were visible, the elder probably a couple years older than the younger; the former thrust their heads forward at Kukri while the latter cowered against their father's wings. Giya broke the silence. “Maybe, madam, Kukri, you'd like to tell where we're going”. She sounded at unease.
pinkgothic:
Kukri was not altogether sure what all the introduction had covered, making her somewhat self-conscious about whether she was repeating something and coming across as belittling of this man's intelligence, which, irrespective of whether it may or may not be a fair assessment, was certainly rude.
“I am here at the behest of the Society of Natural Philosophy,” and her own vivid curiosity, besides, lest she have raised a fuss about being sent here, “to take measurements of the thick of the ice before it wanes. It would be somewhat foolish to attempt such a venture without assistance.
“And it was in looking for such that I made Giya's acquaintance. She suggested she may be able to spare a few days to assist me; and I have offered my services as a mentor should she wish to apply to the Society of Natural Philosophy.” It was good to speak it, to remind herself of the promise. It felt heavy in her mouth, but there was no use lamenting it, even in private - in absence of generous funding, it was all she could offer.
Concavenator:
The man rose in the nest, withdrew and lifted his head. In doing so, perhaps accidentally, he bared his abdomen. Kukri jerked her head away at the sight of a stranger's nudity; but even the first involuntary glance was enough to show that the man's belly was balding, and his brood-patches were callused. Clearly, in an effort to find sustenance, he had brooded over many more eggs than he could possibly have sired.
“Respects, guild member”, he said in a raucous voice that must have been seldom used. He spoke as if he picked every word slowly and carefully, with considerable effort. “I am… glad… you seek- see… value, in my… daughter. Tell to the guild that… Djayu Taikrika-Ch'aa'a… is… their good servant”. And he laid down again.
pinkgothic:
It took some effort for Kukri not to wince, to keep her composure. The story seemed to map itself out in her head now - he had either never had a mate, or said mate had died or abandoned him, leaving him to fend for himself. What had possessed him to think it would be a grand idea to offer his help in tending to nests to alleviate his situation was a different matter. What had possessed the ones that had asked this service of him to leave their offspring here another.
It was a sad sight. He was perhaps not entirely endowed with wit, but Kukri had never quite found it in herself to consider people's suffering, however potentially self-inflicted, deserved.
It took her a moment to gather herself and ask: “Will you manage without Giya for a few days?” The answer seemed to be an obvious 'no', but it wasn't as though anyone here had better choices to offer either Kukri or Giya. Or this man, for that matter.
Concavenator:
He was thoughtful for a few moment. He might have feared to offend his guest, or to make her withdraw her offer. There was very little visible food in the house, and few places to store it (unless it was buried under the floor?). The nestlings didn't look too unhealthy – perhaps the man really was good at tending them, even if to his own detriment, at least with Giya present – but it certainly would do them no good to go hungry for several days.
“Yes”, he said finally, “My oldest here… will find what… we need. I'll give them crop milk, to all”. Djayu did not look like he had a single drop of crop milk in his whole body. Maybe the older children would prove themselves resourceful enough. In the meantime, what else could they do?
Perhaps sensing that they wouldn't stay here long, Giya walked over to the nest, and called her siblings around with a gesture. One by one, starting with the little ones plunged into their father's feathers, she made them lift their heads and open their mouths, and gently regurgitated into them a portion of Kukri's leftover soup. Once again Kukri averted her gaze, silently praying 'Au'a the Secret-keeper to infuse some pudor into these people, or else to take some away from her.
Only at that point did Giya's siblings seem to understand that she was about to leave. Their speech, rapid and squeaking and overlapping, was even harder to follow than whatever Giya had told her father, but it reach its purpose nonetheless. Giya's response was soft and soothing, even as she turned around to face Kukri and the cold street outside.
pinkgothic:
Kukri had known it wouldn't be pleasant to come here. The poverty was bearable, presenting itself merely as a fact, and an expected one at that. The heartbreak at the parting of ways, on the other hand, dug deep into her emotions.
The knowledge that it was only for a few days held the worst of it in check, as long as she took care not to link it to potential starvation in her mind. The family had managed to survive so far, somehow; while she might not quite know how they'd achieved this feat, she doubted it was all purely Giya's doing.
“I will bring Giya back in one piece,” Kukri promised. A brief morbid thought flit through her mind's eye: A corpse can still be in one piece. She resisted the urge to awkwardly append 'and alive' – it went without saying. She would do her best to reunite the family after the mission was over.
For now, however, it helped no one if they didn't focus on that very mission. “We'll travel as briskly as is sensible. I wish you good health and fortune.” It looks like you would benefit greatly from any measure of either.
Concavenator:
Djayu grunted softly. Perhaps he was tired of speaking what, to him, must have been utterly unnatural speech. If he said goodbye to Giya, it was with glances, with a tilt of the head and a subtle change in the pattern of breath. All of a sudden, upon leaving, Kukri realized that there could be a treasure of things to study and learn among these battered people.
Giya reacted much the same, throwing one last oblique glance above her own back as she stepped over the purely imaginary threshold. The wind had picked up speed, and ruffled their feathers; livid stars had congealed where the clouds had torn apart.
Giya was quiet for the next several hundreds of steps.
pinkgothic:
Kukri tried to sink a little further into her jacket. The winds would only get worse as they journeyed out, having no buildings to break themselves against and vegetation necessarily becoming sparse, but there was no use for her to dwell on it - the apprehension wouldn't do anyone any favours.
The polite questions to ask were 'Do you think they will be all right?' and 'How did your family come into this situation?' now that she'd seen it, but asking either was quite beyond her. She simply did not want to know the answers and she doubted it would do Giya so much good to answer them that it outweighed Kukri's dislike of it.
So instead she asked, trying to make herself sound encouraging but her inflection tinged with mild discomfort despite her best efforts: “Is there anything else you need before we head out toward the ice?”
Concavenator:
“No”, she said, rather bluntly. “No, Kukri, if you will, I'm ready to go”. She briefly squeezed her eyes shut, thrusting her snout into the fierce wind. Kukri had once heard a colleague describe the readiness with which the low-born of the borderlands leave their families whenever the opportunity to collect food or coinage presented itself, and took it as evidence that their minds were incapable of forming deep bonds beyond brute convenience. (The same colleague had then described the same people as clannish beyond reason, more attached to their relations than to the common good; but for her this did not count as “deep bonds”). It was not at all clear to Kukri that starving on her sisters' side would have been a greater act of love on Giya's part.