Drifting [Samiyuq & Daniela]

"More about the ranch, actually," Samiyuq says with a slight smile, "but don't worry, it was good." If anything he had been surprisingly easy to talk to, the two of them settling into a comfortable rhythm chatting about market days and the baffling places livestock get themselves stuck. Ze startled hirself laughing out loud at one point, and he'd been patiently tactful when ze folded inward for a few minutes afterward, trying to convince hirself not to feel guilty for that moment of happiness. "My parent is a goatherd, I had some stories to trade."

Thinking about hir parent has ached since ze first left home, a dull throb somewhere deeper in hir ribcage than even the bats, but the closer ze gets to returning, the more the sharp sting of anxiety weaves its way into the feeling. All this time practicing the things ze might say as they embrace (munayki^[1], I missed you, imaynallam kaskanki^[2], I've seen mountains now and I see why you love them, of course I'm okay, munayki, munayki—), and all too soon hope will give way to knowledge. Ze doesn't know what ze'll do if ze doesn't learn the answer ze wants. Does know that war so, so rarely gives people the answers they want.

"I'm Daniela."

Samiyuq takes the steadiest breath ze can, then takes the bowl.

The solid warmth is grounding if not quite comforting, and Samiyuq simply cradles it for a moment before remembering to look back to Daniela and smile. "Samiyuq." The first few times like this, ze gave people fake names, but ze's too exhausted to keep up with an alias these days. If ze can trust Daniela and her family enough to sleep in their home, ze can trust them with hir name. "Thank you. I'm, it's—you've all been very kind. It smells fantastic." Ze clears hir throat, mostly for a moment to gather hirself. Most travelers ze's crossed paths with try to find safety in numbers, but their groups are small and ephemeral by necessity; it's been a while since Samiyuq talked as much as ze has today, and it's not so much that hir throat hurts as that ze's suddenly unrelentingly aware of it. "Are you staying to eat as well?"



[1] I love you.
[2] How are you?

Well. It isn't a common enough name that Samiyuq can expect it to go unrecognized every time. As ze recovers a waver in hir smile ze half-wishes ze'd cobbled together an alias after all, as much for Daniela's comfort as hir own, and half-wonders whether ze should try to offer some kind of reassurance that—ze doesn't know. That ze hasn't led troops to her family's home? That hir only intentions are to pay for the night in tomorrow's farm chores and be on hir way? That ze won't be offended if she'd rather not stay? Is there anything ze can say, when she has no reason to believe hir, or would ze only spook her further?

Daniela decides the matter by bursting out a slightly strangled "Thank you!" and turning back to the stove before Samiyuq comes up with anything. Feeling indefinably but distinctly rude watching someone who isn't looking back, ze retreats into taking a bite of the stew—it is, in fact, as good as it smells—and gazes past the bowl at nothing in particular.

She can't be any older than Mohamed, and perhaps even as young as Antigone was. Maybe young enough to not have been in the first drawing or two, definitely among the first generation to spend their entire adolescence in the shadow of the Games. Her sister, if ze remembers her father's comments right, is younger than that. And for all that at barely twenty ze knows ze's only a few years older, ze feels briefly overwhelmed at the weight of the difference a handful of years can make in whether someone gets time to have a childhood before war reshapes the world—at how similar and different their lives have been, three ranch children growing up not so far apart in space or time, and the unfairness of wartime fallout landing in the yard of this girl who stays politely welcoming through her shock. If you didn't mind, indeed.

"Of course not," Samiyuq says. "This is your home." And the awkward atmosphere hasn't gone anywhere, but ze's glad she decided to stay.

"Have you been traveling much?"

"Not really. This is the first time I've—" ze grimaces briefly, but sees no way around the corner ze's talked hirself into— "voluntarily left home in a few years." Not that this trip was entirely of hir own accord, either, but ze'd had more to gain by agreeing and more to lose by refusing than vice versa; ze's still fairly sure that the group back home sent hir to this meeting more as a test of trust than as a display of any that already exists. Even then ze almost stayed home, fretting about whether hir official excuse for setting off would prove airtight enough to keep hir parent safe, until they'd said hir anxiety was souring the goats' milk and all but shoved hir out the door.

Prepared excuse or not, ze shrugs off the subject before that statement can go anywhere else, content to settle into savoring the meal and listening quietly to Daniela. (For the most part, at least. Ze can't quite help a small, voiceless huff into hir bowl at the comment about other travelers; after everything ze's done hir glass house is awfully fragile, and ze knows well enough how it feels to be so tired any bed looks like luxury, but the idea of dismissing the Bedollas' generosity still rankles.) Hearing that they get regular traffic surprises hir—they aren't so far out from the war as to be done worrying about mines and traps, but then, life goes on, and people go where they need to—and ze's still mulling that over when Daniela turns the conversation back to hir. Startled, ze swallows a piece of beef slightly sooner than ze should have, and has to blink rapidly for a moment while ze catches enough breath to speak again.

"I'm happy to be closer to home." Still faintly embarrassed, ze stirs hir bowl a little, watching fleeting rivulets form in the broth. "And I wouldn't say it was easy going, but it's also been... I've been hearing about the mountains down in Peru all my life. I'm glad I had the chance to see some, even if they're not quite the same." The war gave hir plenty of time in the wilderness, but never quite like that—never with time to sit and breathe cool, clean air, unconcerned about being seen or tracked or bombed, staring down into a valley and marveling at how tiny distance made the massive trees below. Even if by some miracle ze makes it to the Andes someday after all, ze'll keep that unexpected treasure tucked against hir heart as long as ze lives. "Living at a crossroads like this must be interesting. Have you been through the pass yourself?"