Northstar Vale artificer

only if she is (or you are!) free! :D

the kind theos teacher held many interesting lessons — and yet zosime wondered if there was more to be learned. for the woman had not always been part of epoch, even if she had been for a large chunk of zosime's life!

-@Towhee!- awkwardly signed as the growing girl bounced along the woman's trail, hoping to be within view.

Towhee stood beside the spring, thirst freshly slaked and eyes glassy. She still felt under the weather, the congestion having migrated to her chest. She could breathe a little better now, though wet coughs wracked her frame at regular intervals. She hadn’t slept well and Towhee knew she’d disturbed Maxim’s rest too. She just hoped he might avoid coming down with this terrible cold somehow.

She sensed someone approaching and turned her head slowly, assuming it was her mate. But it was young Zosime, signing Towhee’s name in an obvious bid to get her attention. Despite how poorly she felt, the Theos turned to properly face the child, a wan smile on her lips.

-“Hey there. I wouldn’t get too close, I don’t know how contagious I am,”- she greeted, the words punctuated with a brief but phlegmatic hacking. -“What brings you my way, Zosime?”- she wondered.

blue eyes widened considerable for the moment, the hacking and the sickness clear as day! yet still the teacher seemed kind enough to ask her what she had come for!

oh! well...i was wondering if you could -teach stories- but... now she felt bad! asking a sick teacher to teach! maybe you should see meadow? her voice was loud so that, she felt, her lips could be easier read with a little bit of bigger motions.

she had no clue if it actually helped.

She saw the girl’s eyes widen, likely when she noticed Towhee was under the weather. Just in case it had Zosime second-guessing asking what she’d come here to ask, the Theos motioned for her to proceed.

-“It’s just a bad cold. I don’t think there’s even much she could do for me,”- Towhee replied. -“What do you mean by stories?”- she added with a blink, caught a bit off guard by this particular request.

she flopped down onto her butt, prepared to reeeeeally flex her signing muscles. it seemed like the least she could do!

-sometimes my dad and mom have stories of stuff like...way before me. of where they came from!- it seemed kinda silly that they hadn't always been in epoch, but she did not fret over that. -do you have stories like that? where you've come from?-

-Ah,- Towhee signed her understanding when Zosime elaborated, pausing before adding out loud, Nah, nothing’s ever happened to me before, and winked.

The Atoma had made herself comfortable, so Towhee did the same, easing down onto her haunches a few feet from the water’s edge. She didn’t want to get any closer to the young girl and this seemed like a good distance to keep Zosime out of the splash zone in case of any coughing or sneezing.

-“I was born in a place called Redhawk Caldera. I could tell you my life story but it would drag on for ages. Is there any particular sort of story you’d like to hear, specifically? Like, something adventurous? Or tragic?”- There were a lot of those. -”Scary? Maybe all of the above?”-

briefly zosime was overcome by a fit of giggles. nothing had ever happened to towhee! she knew such could not be true, for things happened in epoch, but it seemed silly all the same.

it was good that they signed, so that she had not laughed over the words of towhee.

-scary?- zosime was intrigued and worried all at once. nothing scary had ever happened to her! what were scary things like. without waiting for any elaboration, she declared loudly. -scary! scary!-

If Towhee thought about it, she could probably come up with a dozen or more deeply frightening tales to tell Zosime, all of them true stories. However, she regarded the small Atoma, noting her excitement, and decided she was a bit too young to traumatize like that. There was absolutely merit to sharing cautionary tales to help young people learn, yet there was no reason Towhee needed to share anything too morbid.

An idea hit her. Knowing Towhee, she would probably still traumatize Zosime a little bit today, though hopefully approaching it from a comical angle would soften any grisly edges. She smirked to herself, reminiscing about a particular event where she had actually been in fear for her life…

A few years ago, I was living with my pack in a place called Sun Mote Copse. It was getting close to spring. I was having a hard time with some aches and pains after trying to fight a pig with some of my pack mates, Towhee said, pausing to think of Avery, Maia and Wraen. It did a number on us and escaped.

That wasn’t the main part of her story, though she stopped to see what Zosime thought so far. Did she have any questions? Did she think the pig was the scary villain of this story? Towhee grinned.

none of this sounded very scary. although maybe it did not help that she had no clue what the beast towhee spoke of was.

what's a...pig?

she thought of a nimble animal like a deer. for it had escaped after all! but...well, it had also hurt towhee. zosime had never seen towhee be taken down by a deer before!

It’s similar to a deer but smaller and fatter, Towhee replied without missing a beat. Instead of antlers, pigs have tusks: big, pointy teeth. They’re ugly fuckers, mean too.

Towhee cleared her throat, then continued, I thought I was just bruised. But instead of getting better, the pain got worse and worse as the days passed. I was having trouble patrolling and kept having to take swims in a nearby river to help with it.

One day, it got so bad, it was radiating down my back. It occurred to me that it might just be gas. Have you ever had a big fart trapped inside of you? It can hurt so bad. I tried everything to express it but it just would not come out. I wore myself out trying and eventually gave up and fell asleep.

I woke up a bit later and knew I was about to have the worst diarrhea of my whole life. My family was sleeping nearby, so I tried to make a run for it, but it just came out of me in a big gush. I passed a turd so huge, I thought it tore my insides on its way out. It definitely felt like it. I started to pass out, thinking I was dying.

And then, Towhee said, pausing, my turd looked up at me.

deer! but not. no, they were, ugly fuckers. which then zosime wanted to ask what a fucker was, but the story was carrying on and with it her interest.

she listened closely. noted the things like swimming to help, but that it only got worse! like a big fart! she tried to hide the soft snicker in the back of her throat. lips twisted upward slightly to show off her humor with the comparison.

although suddenly the story turned. it would there that zosime found what was truly scary.

childbirth.

what smile or stifled laughs she may have had, faded at once. face suddenly pale, eyes widening in slow spread horror.

IT LOOKED?!

Well, she was forced to admit, snickering a little at Zosime’s satisfying reaction, it didn’t exactly look at me ‘cause its eyes were shut. But it had a face! And as it turned out, it had little feet and a tail too! It was, she continued, drawing in a breath and pausing for dramatic effect, a baby.

She gave the Atoma another moment to process that. Towhee wondered if she was going to give her nightmares about childbirth. Just in case, there was more to the story that she soon revealed.

I had no idea I was pregnant, so that’s why it was such a surprise. I actually didn’t think I could have children, so it was really an enormous surprise. A happy one. So, so happy.

her cheeks puffed with air, but she felt that soon they might fill with acid. she felt sick. a turd with a FACE! feet and a tail too!

it didn't matter if it was actually a baby! or if towhee had been happy to have that face-having turd!

zosime all at once wondered if that's how she came into the world. that upset her even further. enough that she tilted her head back and wailed in her disgust. TOOOOWHEEEEEE! GROSS, GROSS, GROSS!

but towhee had only given the learning atoma what she had asked for.

a scary story.

Towhee couldn’t hear the volume of Zosime’s cry, though she could definitely see the emphasis of it. She laughed, which sent her into a coughing fit. It was actually one of the worst she’d experienced. Was this karma? Maybe it served her right. By the time she caught her breath, there were tears pricking in her eyes.

-I really need to get back to bed. I hope you liked my story,- she signed cheekily.

Zosime was a diligent pupil at her Ptero lessons, so Towhee thought she should understand most of that. She hoped so, because she had an inkling that if she tried to talk, it would aggravate her throat. She needed to fetch a drink in the spring beside her, then go lie down.

fading! tysm for wonderful story!! :D

through crinkled eyes she caught towhee's signs. it was good, because zosime had no more want to hear what else might hide in towhee's stories. not today, at least.

-bye! thanks!- she signed a bit clumsily for her already moving form before she hurried back off on her way. prepared to traumatize somebody else with the knowledge she had gained today.