Chapter Text
[Kondëjara]
The early morning fog ascended from the earth, a blanket of chilled spirits rising to the heavens only to reincarnate as water and return to the earth, the bromous morn was pierced by the sun's javelins of warmth; Kondëjara's eyes went from a mud brown to dewy copper as the one his people called, The Protector of Humanity and Chieftess of The Gods, beamed onto him as he worked. The sun's light highlighted the engraved scratches on the clay tablet he was reading from, the letters were made from the natives of the valley he had moved into. He raised his finger and pointed at a mark, "Ba?" He phonated, of which the priest who had handed him the tablet responded with, "Rau."
"Rau." Kondëjara mimics the etching on a separate tablet, "Rão,"
"Rau!"
"Rão?"
The priest glared at him, though he hadn't spoke a word of reprimand, his eyes were loud enough, their dark rings etched with the ware of teaching the illiterate.
Kondëjara taped his foot and impatiently spat, "This is ridiculous. What is the purpose of these scribbles?"
"It's for record keeping and sending messages. You should learn it, all the villages around here and in the surrounding regions use this to communicate long distances."
"Do your chieftains not travel?"
"all the time, they bring the tablets to remember things."
"What about courriers?"
"We have them, they bring the tablets, too."
Kondëjara's jaw slinged open, his eyes observed the older man like his head and suddenly fallen off, "You all are mad with ill-minds,"
"Skull-devils, they eat your eyes if you don't practice your glyphs."
Kondëjara aighed as he dips down and makes a diagonal cross and a circle around it on his tablet with his stylus, "Ba?"
"Actually.... yes... that is, 'ba'."
After about two hours of clawing into the slabs of silt, Kondëjara had moved on and excused himself to help his people with daily work around their upstart village; admittedly, his people are very self reliant and can do good without him, he just needed to stop trying to pronounce "Ga" or "Gaun" which sounded exactly like the "Qa" sound of "Qaaw" to his ears. Old man's probably sic'd his skull-devils after him as well.
The Ara’qüwa, a people from the arid scrubs of the Southlands, had a chieftain named Taul'oga; that was a chieftain the Ara’qüwa could trust, he was claimed by both allies and enemies to be blessed by every Wind to move as they did, he was gifted a bronze axe that struck as lightning, and a helmet that radiated as The Heavenly Mother did. But, even with his great panoply and his lieges of loyal riders, all men die with time. When that time came, he had to choose between picking one of his sons or picking the another person of good merit. He chose the young chief of another tribe, hoping to merge their people after decades of friendship; but, the oldest brother decided otherwise and instigated conflict, killing the new chief in single-combat, beating her head against the limestone cliffs, using her stains as a mark of his rule on the tribe, and banishing his sibling far away from their homeland. That was the last Kondëjara heard from his family, or, now just his brother, if they even saw each other as family anymore.
[Nowa' Cousins]
The smell of smoke, fresh from the rockets filled the lungs of the encrouching pikemen, hand-canoneers, and horses as they marched through the rubbled citadel. Nowa' Dryn's horse clacked it's hooves as it cantered through, lightly bouncing over and stepping around the remains of houses, towers, walls, and what one could hope was an unfortunate alpaca; the steed was used to destruction at the hands of its master. Dryn stepped down from his steed as he walked up to the ruler of the citadel and surrounding villages, "What is your name, Sa'ahyon?" He had a moments thought, Sa'ahyon means "outsider or foreigner," should that what he is to these people? It matters not, at least he knew enough of their language to say the first part of that sentence.
The fallen lord was on his back, pressed against the slowly crumbling walls of the oustide of his palace, "Waniyapa of Kabb'l."
Dryn got to one knee and looked at the disgraced noble, his ripped ceremonial armor made of animal hides and bronze, no match for steel and fire, slashed in ways that revealed his tattooed hide. Like a canvas, painted in hues as bright as the avian remains on his flamboyant feather-creasted cap of a helmet. "Waniyapa, do you work for anyone or... are you of an independent association?"
Waniyapa shuddered and lurched back, reaching for his star-headed mace, Nowa' Dryn acted on instinct, his long frame dragging the man back and encircled around the poor soul with his scaly cloak, a fleshy and wet shredding then several garggled gulps before going still.
Like a carnivore finished with its feast the carcass of the chieftain slapped to the rocky floor as Nowa' Dryn simply walked off, then stopped, "Take as you wish, most of the people here won't be needing it. After your done with your spoiling of the horde, burn what can be burnt..." He then added, almost playfully, "flesh burns too..." then serious and hissing once more, "keep that in mind."