The Sons and Daughters of the Plains.....Meet the Dwellers

The morning had dawned bright and clear, and that air of excitement and festivity seemed to have tripled during the night. The children were up early, and in fine form, even the girls seemed to sense that there was something different in the air. Now how could one be blue with all of this energy and excitement surround you?



Now, when you endeavor to take six children anywhere, it is an exercise in logistics. And there was not a commander among the Tuchuk, that took this duty on any more seriously than her. In fact, there were a couple that you could probably name that could take a lesson or two from any mother that ventured out into such a venue with six little dark heads in tow. And six heads, meant twelve feet all wanting to go in different directions. And she did have help. She, the children and the slaves all moved under the watchful eyes of not only Rook, but those Ubar's guards that still found a way to shadow her footsteps. Weren't they supposed to be with Ayguili?



When they finally made it past the rings of wagons, it was like an assault on the senses. Just the voices of so many people would have been enough to make you step back, but add to that the musicians, the entertainers, the vendors hawking their wares, it was a cacophony of sounds. Voices, the bray and bleat of animals, drums, flutes, tambourines, marching feet, great swells of laughter from the warriors of the plains as they pitted themselves against each other in games of chance of one sort of another. And none of the voices were angry.



Through the next few days, she would marvel at the voices. For the most part, the words were unintelligible to her, for few of the spoke in the language of her tribe. And it seemed that not even the dwellers understood each other all of the time. There was a great deal of gesturing, some drawing on the ground with stick and daggers, to get points across. Some of the larger merchants tents had people standing around just to talk to other people in their native tongues. If not, how would any trading go on?



At one point, Another One stopped dead in his tracks and pointed as he called out..."Look Mother, look at that!"



Following the line of where he was pointing, even her eyes grew wide. It took her a moment to realize that what they saw was not some aberrant, human figure, but a man walking around with long poles attached to his boots, that brought him well above the heads of the crowd. And if it was not feat enough to manage those things, that she learned later were called stilts, the man was juggling red fruits in the air, and keeping up a steady stream of conversation with those that had gathered around him to gape in awe, and taking a bite out of one of the fruits from time to time, and never dropping the rest. Amazing.



And she would have to say, that Two was his father's son. At one point he bolted off to where two women were standing, robed, veiled, and with their noses in the air as if they were sniffing for rain or something, and before she could stop him, he had grasped the hems of one woman's robes, lifted them and was bent almost double trying to see what lay beneath. Good Skies. You should have heard the shrieking that came from that silly dweller woman. She went into a fit of apoplexy, danced around as if those robes had suddenly caught fire and began to flail at Two with her fan.



Her fatal error, was leaning down to try and hit the boy with that said fan, and him being the wily son of Ba'atar, he took that opportune moment, to grasp her veils and run. Leaving her powdered and rouged face exposed in all of it's glory. So there she was, still dancing around, screaming and trying to hide her face behind the fan which she held in one hand, and pounding on her own breast with the other, like she was going to die. Were these dweller women that afraid of the rays of the Central Fires on their faces. Is that why they were so blasted pale? And running around and around her, just out of reach, was Two trailing those diaphanous veils behind him like huge pink and purple clouds.



Now........that's entertainment!


Even Also got into the act. Her brow lifted as she watched him. She had never realized that he was such a mimic. He was normally so quiet, and reserved, it was actually a joy to see a lighter side of him, as he pranced around, one hand on his hip, the other waving in the air as if he had his own fan, and screaming....thief, ruffian, little beast, at the top of his young lungs.


Rook rescued the woman's veils from her son, and walked to the woman, bowed with a flourish and offered them back to her on the end of his quiva. That is when the woman passed plum out! And her friends began that same dance she had been doing around her prone body, shrieking and wailing as if a whole little pack of urts had suddenly scampered up their robes. Were they of the entertainers clan? Surely they were, for no sane woman would act like that.



The last she saw of that particular flock of robed vulos, they had managed to get their vaporous friend into one of those tiny wagons that had no wheels, but it had its' own set of veils around it. One of the women was beating some of the biggest male slaves that Cana had ever seen with this domed, shaped, cloth and wood thing that evidently was made to, again protect them from the so called, harsh rays of the Central Fire, until they picked up the wagon with no wheels and ran towards one of those huge gates in the walls. She had this feeling that those dweller women were finished shopping for the day. Perhaps for the entire festival.


Ok, time to marshal her little troop back together. With the help of Rook, the slaves and one of the guards she managed to get them all back into some semblance of order, except for Tug. She frantically turned in circles trying to spy her eldest, then she stopped and stared. There was a form that looked suspiciously like her son, on his hands and knees beside a tent, with his head stuck under the side. Walking up behind him, she could smell the paga fumes all the way outside, to the point her eyes burned.


Now, she could have just reached down, grabbed him by the waist of his leathers and drug his head from beneath the wall of that tent, but her curiosity got the best of her. What could have diverted his attention away from all that was going on around them, to the point he did not feel the toe of her boot on his little arse? Dropping to her knees beside him, she stuck her head under the wall of the tent to see what was so fascinating.


Oh Skies! Big mistake, big, big, huge mistake! She is a woman that has given birth to six children, so, she is not entirely innocent. However, there are things that any woman should not exactly see. First of all, the tent was full of men, drinking, yelling, and grabbing at the totally naked slaves that were amidst gyrations, that she actually found a bit difficult to believe that the body of a woman could do in a dance. But her son's eyes were riveted to a small area, that was curtained off to the main group of patrons and dancing slaves, but not to the back walls of the tent where they were spying. And in this small alcove.......well, it defies words.


She found herself calling out her son's name, he jumped, their heads clashed together, she saw small points of light, he shrieked like the dweller woman did, and they couldn't scramble back out of there fast enough. And of course, the commotion drew the attention of the men inside. Some of them came out to see what the ruckus was, and there she was, her skirt covered with dirt from where she had been kneeling, and it would be a toss up as to whose faces was reddest, hers' or Tug's. Her son made a very mature decision at this moment.


"Run!"


And for a moment or two, they were the entertainment, stumbling over each other, trying to disappear into the crowd, the laughter of the men chasing them. At one point, she even thinks that she may have grabbed his tunic, held him until she could run around him, leaving him to guard the rear, so to speak. Hey, if you want to be a man, then be a man and protect the woman! Especially if that woman gave birth to you! And she ran right into Rook, who had come to find them. He caught her, then snaked a hand out to catch Tug by the arm, and looked at their faces, which were red as a foxes' behind. His brow lifted in question, and she simply told him, they would speak on it later. Much, much later. But she did realize, that maybe the time had come for one of the men that seemed so intent on her well being, to have a talk with her son.


She was actually a bit mortified as she walked beside Rook back to where he had left the others with the guards, right up until the point, that the humor in the situation hit her, and she began to laugh, and was unable to stop. She finally found a small bench, sat down and laughed until tears ran down her face. The funny thing was, that Tug dropped down beside her, narrowed his gaze on her as if she had lost her mind, then began to laugh away his embarrassment. The dwellers passed, looking down their noses at the woman and boy that had their arms around each other for support, and were laughing at seemingly nothing.


When they recovered, he had looked at her, and in those eyes that were so much like Tayco's, she saw the love her son had for her, and was touched.


The rest of the day was spent ogling the entertainers, the dwellers, the trained animals, shopping and eating until they were all so full they could not move. Roasted meats, candies, fruits that they rarely saw other than in their dried state, a wonderful thing called honey straws, cold juices with slivers of ice in them, that had come from a huge block of a glacier, had been transported to the plains expressly for this event. Some things that dwellers did puzzled her greatly, but ice........now that was one thing they did, that she truly enjoyed.


All and all, it was a wonderful day spent with her children. To see the light of awe and amazement in their faces was something she would never forget, nor would she want to. And it was a day that she needed, probably more than most knew.


It was a very good day.