† Kohryn †
Wandering through tents and booths, Kohryn had naturally taken the fallen position. She followed behind Talis and Mikhail- the two exchanging the lead as they went. Talis would be interested in satiny clothes from the south, glittering jewelry of questionable origin, half naked belly dancers, and sword swallowers available to see for a few coins. In between garments and entertainers, Mikhail would veer to the side, asking about trinkets, flutes, and vases, the two women waiting politely off to the side.
It was an easy encounter for individuals who were only beginning to explore each other's company.
"Was there anything you wanted to see?" Mikhail asked Kohryn as they sat off to the side of the bridge under a shaded tree. Too many boulders littered the area for anyone from the convoy to make camp. It had spared them a bit of privacy on the irregularly busy mountain.
She shook her head. "I saw everything there was to see." Talis and Mikhail's interests alone afforded her sweeps through almost every storefront. She had heard in passing of a cloth vendor with patterned fabrics, fine threads and needles. But that was further into the valley and the bridge was the border of her lawfully imposed barrier.
"There's still more in the village-..." Talis cringed. A moment of panic set her stomach on fire as she decided whether to brush off her fumble, pretend it didn't happen, or bring up Kohryn's rules for existing.
Kohryn's swift and neutral reply saved Talis from herself. "Please do not let me stop you, I'm fine here. I heard that there are some beautiful seamstresses situated in the town square as well as a group of Aasai shamans. You should check them out."
Talis' ears perked at the mention of the shamans. "Really?" The shamans were of the nomadic tribes of the Aasai. Strong mystics, rumored to always possess great beauty and power.
Kohryn nodded. "You should go as well, Mikhail. Caravans this size do not travel through Imore often. It may be moons before we get another one even half this size." She did not know how long the foreigner planned to stay, but if he meant to spend all his time in Imore it would be wise to browse the merchants while they were around.
Talis looked at Kohryn a little perplexed and starry eyed. Kohryn breathed through her nose and gave the other woman a kind nod.
After a moment, Talis, stunned having never heard Kohryn speak so much, nodded, "alright," then looked at the blonde man sitting on the other side of her. "You and I can go check out the vendors in the village and Kohryn will wait here for us."
"Are you sure you're fine to wait?" Mikhail's dark brows crested in concern.
Kohryn didn't mind. She was used to being by herself and, if she were honest, she was tired. She'd had more human interaction in the last week than she probably had her entire life. She was starting to exhaust.
Mikhail stared at her before she waved her hand in stern dismissal. "Really it's fine. Go on. I'll wait here until you get back."
*
Hunched against a boulder grown over with grass and tufts of moss, she sat shaded away from the eyes of others.
She was good at that. Hiding. Always quick to search out the deepest shadow in some unseen and forgotten corner. A place from which she could see the world but it could not see her.
She still managed to attract attention once every blue moon, when her presence was a little too close for a little too long. But not so much now as when she was young. It was a skill that took time and practice to learn.
Tucked away, Kohryn observed the little clearing and caravan before her. The sky and the trees framed a painting of some world she existed just outside of. It was a day where the sun was hot and orange yet the shade was chilled and breezy. The flowing thrum of conversation among the crowds filled typically quiet streets..
Traveling courtesans in scantily clad clothing buzzed to and fro. The beautiful men and women brought in stifling amounts of coin from rich men and locals hankering for something new to try in their isolated villages. Some hung from the arms of customers, while others flitted about, little secrets for their buyers.
A fat man, with rings on all his fingers and fashionable tailcoats waving in the winds, stormed through the throngs of red light workers. He furiously hissed out commands while a scrawny attendant clad in thick rimmed glasses took notes on a small pad. As fast as they came into the paint they left it. Obviously he had somewhere else to be and someone to be screaming at.
He was a splash of color followed by a group of guards on the lookout for crime. Their faces were set in intimidating scowls and the people spread for them like schools of fish dodging mouths of hungry sharks. Their muted and drab attire was supposed to be symbolic of their public service, upholders of peace, keepers of rationality.
But, more often than not, they were only human, with biases and histories that molded their behavior. They weren't necessarily bad, but for caravans; filled with prostitutes, potion peddlers, and dealers, one was to keep their head down and their mouth shut. It was the unspoken rule of Ipahn-strange country that it was-, just shut up and mind your business. A man could do mostly as he pleased. As long as he was quiet and didn't make trouble, the guards would go about their way.
They meandered through the picture for a while, looking for someone to profile, something to do, a warning to give, and a bribe to take.
Kohryn sank a little further into the shadows as they neared.
The guards had never been too hard on her but she still knew what they were capable of and that little voice in their heads told them she was different. Different just like the dealers and junkies and dark practitioners, and that was bad. It was best not to be noticed by them at all.
They gradually fell out of sight and Kohryn sighed in relief. Finally she could see a little more of the whole picture again.
A woman in a floral dress, puffy with undercoats, briskly walked through. A pink baby bounced in her arms, followed by a nanny pulling along an angry child. The child spat and kicked but the nanny and the mother dragged him along, obviously used to his antics.
They were dressed in the clothes of wealth; formal, layered, and well made. Kohryn wondered if she was the wife of the yelling man who had stormed through earlier. Was she trying to catch up with her fuming husband, after struggling to get the child dressed? Even now he wailed, "I DON'T WANT TO GO!" It had that high pitch crunch only angry children could make.
Kohryn puffed in amusement as she watched the two women herd the child across the landscape and over the bridge. She tried to imagine herself there for a moment, hissing and spitting with a fresh tantrum coloring her face red. Throwing a fit, wishing to remain.
She tried to imagine herself anywhere in the painting. A courtesan, beautiful and dressed in chiffon and silk, smelling like lust, sweet leaf, and coins. She would be wrapped around the arm of some wealthy suitor. Or perhaps a rambling vendor, items arranged on tables, spewing pretty words to sell her wares. Even the perusing customer she had been not long before. Politely nodding to craftsmen and studying the quality of their valuables.
She tried to imagine herself blending with the scene but everywhere she could be the colors bled and darkened and people subtly shuffled away taking sidelong and secretive glances at her.
The rich man on her arm pulled away in disgust, buyers avoided her stall, and the vendors covered their wares afraid she was up to something more devious than perusing.
Well… she supposed she didn't have to be in the scene. It was a nicer picture without her.
.
A small and traveling whine slowly drew her attention away from the world she could not picture herself blending into. It set its hurt tone on the layers of activity in a needy call. It grew closer before leveling out, pain creating an even little song, belonging to some animal hurt, off in the bushes.
Kohryn pushed from the edge of her hideaway and snaked around the boulder, silently disappearing into the thicket of forest.
This was where leafy trees of the valley merged with the needled trees of the mountain. They grew thick, abundant in foliage and created a dense carpet of debris. It muffled all sound except for the light echo of the wounded whine.
She did not understand why she went to look for it. She never understood what would draw her to the suffering she so often found in her small world, but she sought it out nonetheless.
Perhaps it was to offer help, in whatever way she might be able to.
Even deeper within her psyche was the desire to satisfy her human curiosity to know, to see. It stemmed from that same unnerving need to investigate the bump in the night. Like leaving shelter to view a raging storm, overtaken with the morbid need to know how the sky bled and what was broken.
The heat of the day was locked out by the shade of the canopy and cooled air stilled in the well of the undergrowth. Her breath came out in chilled puffs and the whine grew nearest yet.
Between pine and cedar bark, wet with sweat and blood seeping from festering skin, was a golden furred dog. Steaming and twitching, its hind leg was twisted and mangled. Skin flayed in ruin was proof of its escape from some trap set for game and not domestic pets.
Its eyes were slits wincing in pain and exhaustion. It was unseeing and crumpled.
Kohryn stilled, her feet sinking in forest decay making soft sucking sounds in the quiet of the trees. She slowly crouched down, waiting for its crescent eyes to narrow in and acknowledge her.
She huddled only close enough to stretch out her arm and brush its fur. The dog let out a soft whines. It was a sound of pain and relief, as if to express that it was thankful comfort had arrived. Its tail thumped once upon the ground in one fatigued wag.
A droopy eye cleared and the doe-like amber orb rolled up to greet Kohryn. It had once been a pretty dog, with a long and glossy coat. Now its fur had become crusted and rank. It was hurt and wandering for too long and its looks had grown as pathetic as its health.
The two stared at one another and the dog ceased to whine.
Only ever here, on the brink of the end did beings so openly look Kohryn in the eyes. Finality lingering around the corner that stole away fear and distrust. The two held each other's gaze for a long while. A special and vulnerable period of time, the last experience the dog would have in its life. Kohryn's hand rested on its sickly fur, remaining still, a weight of reassurance and affirmation of her presence.
Its haggard breaths became a little too wet and its whale eyed stare grew unclear. She swallowed air and dryly blinked.
A marriage of life and death was taking place, the dog was a dowry, and Kohryn was the unfortunate witness.
She sat with the dog long after its final moments, a soul to bear witness to the cruelty of fate. Only after its eyes glazed over and its blood began to cool did Kohryn rise, still an arms length away.
She could not offer it the burial it deserved, a reality that sat heavily in her stomach.
Once she had tried to bury a rabbit near her home, and had unfortunately learned that the villagers would assume it was her who had killed it. So instead she took a moment and brushed dead leaves and sappy needles over its body. Then she drove a curvy stick in the ground near its head. A little grave was the best she could make.
The mountain had served as her only world and its paths and crevices she knew like the back of her hand. She easily slipped back toward the crowd, unaware of the death of the dog and how Kohryn and the forest silently watched it all.
She didn't slouch so much now as she resumed watching the life of the village. The flavor of the dog's final breaths still seared into her mind, rusty and stale.
And as she carried on viewing the world from the sideline, the colors of the crowds dimmed and the people no longer seemed so bright in the sunlight. It was still beautiful, morose and tinged gray. The courtesans that had clung, now swayed. Men took soft and sweeping steps, heads gathered and voices low. Peddlers quietly pushing carts, or tended tents and tables, letting the merchandise sell itself. It was somber and the world became mysterious and mournful. Her secret experience influenced her perception.
Kohryn let out another puff of air, intertwined fingers settling in her lap.
Mikhail and Talis didn't return for another half hour.
And the forest had already begun to devour the dog.