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Post by Treijim on Jul 22, 2009 12:00:08 GMT 9.5
Monopa nodded. "Very well. We'll take you to see the king. Get some rest; it's a long walk. Good night."
Larr jumped off his box to assist Cliff with erecting one of the tents. "Yeah, let's go."
There were actually several tents which had been reduced to piles of canvas and wood. Larr went to one beneath a large tree and tapped it with his foot. Then he suddenly ran back into the commons tent and came out with a lamp, hooking it on a pole beside the tent, explaining that they needed to be able to see what they're doing. After a short while of trying to untangle the supports from the woven pieces of canvas, Larr stood inside, in the middle, with the central horizontal beam on his shoulders while Cliff secured the vertical supports to either end. After Larr had checked them, Cliff brought the lamp inside and then left Cliff in there and went to get some bedding.
A head with blue eyes poked in. It was Tex.
"Hi," he said, grinning. "Has anyone told you about the Ferehens? You'd better watch out. If you don't know what to do, they'll carry you up to their nests and you'll be eaten alive by the babies." He reached into the tent with hands bent like claws and imitated gashing motions. Then he laughed and stepped inside. "So can you fight?"
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Post by Ethereal Panda on Jul 22, 2009 12:22:58 GMT 9.5
While helping Larr setup the tent, Cliff had another surge of curiosity. He really wanted to ask who came from the water before. They must have been bad, he concluded with a nod to himself. A devilish grin crossed his mind as he imagined mystical scenarios like he had read in his many books; he hid the expression as quick as it came.
But, something told him that Larr would be the wrong person to ask. Maybe because he was too nice, and Cliff didn't want to upset him. While pondering Larr had wandered off. "Too late now," he said to himself blandly, dropping himself onto the ground. While waiting he watched an ant journey part of the way across the canvas roof.
Seated in the dirt with his legs crossed, he looked up at the blond boy surprised when he popped in. "I can manage," he lied. Cliff narrowed his eyes and added a slight tilt to his head before continued, "but if a Fere-." He stumbled on the foreign word, "should come... how would you fight it?" Cliff's pragmatic side was overlooking the earlier encounter with the boy.
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Post by Treijim on Jul 22, 2009 12:26:56 GMT 9.5
"Oh, you don't," Tex said with a wicked grin. "You wave fire at it and yell; they don't like loud noise. They come from the sky. Now you owe me for that advice..."
He walked around Cliff in a circle as though observing his prey. Tex was nowhere near as critical as he had been earlier. In fact, he seemed curious about Cliff and wasn't worrying about any imminent dangers.
"Can you do anything interesting? Anything at all?"
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Post by Ethereal Panda on Jul 22, 2009 12:37:14 GMT 9.5
Cliff stood from the cross legged position, twisting on his heels so as to face Tex when was fully upright. "Interesting how," he said with a hint of a smile in his eyes. The two boys were face to face. "I am a good climber and am pretty strong," he said. This was actually truthful. His aspirations for adventure and parental defiance lead him to ensure that he could take care of himself.
Cliff stepped uncomfortably close to Tex. "What about you, eh?" There was a hint of sass in his voice.
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Post by Treijim on Jul 22, 2009 12:42:49 GMT 9.5
"I can climb, too," Tex said proudly, not backing down. "I bet I can climb faster than you can. And I can explore. I've discovered more secret places than Jed. And I make shoes with Larr. I can make you some, if you do something for me."
He was still grinning and he put his hands on his hips. He was taller than Cliff, and he took advantage of this.
"Convince Monopa to take me with you tomorrow," Tex said slowly, as though Cliff was retarded. "We're not normally allowed to go with the tree. Tell her that you want to be my friend because I'm lonely or something. I dunno, make something up. Make it sound like you wanna try and be my friend or... Yeah. Then I'll make you some shoes. Since, you know, you're probably gonna be staying here for a while if the king says you didn't come from the water. Waddya say?"
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Post by Ethereal Panda on Jul 22, 2009 12:57:17 GMT 9.5
Crossing his arms, Cliff leaned back arching his back. He narrowed his eyes looking up at the boy. "I am not so sure. I mean, after all I have these nice ones right here," he said teasingly with a click oh his heels. "Besides, it would be awful hard to convince anyone that I would want to be your friend." His emotionless expression betrayed the playful intent of this comment.
He turned to his left looking into the canvas. "But, I suppose I could try." Without saying anything more, he lifted the canvas flap and stepped outside.
It took a few minutes, but he eventually tracked Monopa down. She was standing outside one of the tents adjusting the canvas. She immediately turned to address him. Before the girl could say anything, Cliff's eagerness got the better of him, and he uncharacteristically started the conversation. "I was wondering if Tex could accompany us tomorrow." Realizing the nature of the outburst, he continued in a slowly manner, "I like him. He has a novel charm about him." Not even Cliff knew what exactly he meant by this. His eyes darted in an effort to think of some recovery. "That is, if it is alright."
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Post by Treijim on Jul 22, 2009 13:05:33 GMT 9.5
"A novel charm?" she repeated. She began to smile, but then stopped. "More like a devilish charm. Why would you want him to come? He'll slow us down. Oh, don't worry. Assuming you just spoke with him, go and tell him he can come but as soon as he annoys me, he's going straight back here. Alone." She turned back to what she was doing. "A day of Tex behaving himself..." she said to herself. "Impossible..."
Larr came up to them, stopped, and looked from Monopa to Cliff. "Here you go," he said, unleashing a large bundle of furs and quilts into Cliff's expectant arms. "I'm going to sleep with you, just to make everyone happy." He nodded in Monopa's direction but she didn't respond.
Larr and Cliff went back to the tent. When Tex came out, Larr was about to speak, but Tex got in the first word.
"Well?" Tex said to Cliff, who nodded, and he grinned and walked away with his head held high.
"Something you want to tell me?" Larr asked as he unrolled what appeared to be a mattress onto the grass. "Or are you already making deals behind my back?" He smiled at Cliff, to show he wasn't offended.
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Post by Ethereal Panda on Jul 22, 2009 13:14:14 GMT 9.5
Cliff smiled but then let it fade before he opened his mouth. "I felt bad about your feet." He motioned to Larr's toes. "Tex offered to make me new shoes if I convinced Monopa to let him come. That is all," he said with a warm smile.
"Thanks for sharing a tent," he let out a single hah of a laugh. Cliff struggled with the furs stumbling a bit before dropping most of them to the floor of the tent with a worn sigh.
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Post by Treijim on Jul 23, 2009 10:55:05 GMT 9.5
"Aren't you lucky?" Larr said, pulling his top covers over and lying down on his back. Then he said nothing, and the sound of heavy breathing quickly filled the tent.
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Larr was one of the first ones up out of all of them. He got up and went straight outside and began working on the remaining tents, with Arka helping. When Cliff woke, there was talking nearby; some had awoken, but not all of them. Tex was still in his tent but Monopa could be seen sitting on the ground under one of the trees with her eyes closed.
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Post by Ethereal Panda on Jul 23, 2009 11:07:48 GMT 9.5
As he stepped out of the tent, Cliff stretched with a satisfying grunt. Realizing he had been somewhat slow to rise, he quickly adjusted from his relaxed posture to a stiff seemly alert stance. "Good morning," he said quietly to Larr. "When will we be leaving?" Cliff asked will attempting to brush his hair with his fingers. Trying to make use of himself, he moved to assist Larr, but there didn't seem to be much he could do to help.
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Post by Treijim on Jul 23, 2009 11:24:09 GMT 9.5
"We?" Larr said, holding a beam like a walking stick so that Cliff couldn't grab it. "I'm not going."
Someone took hold of Cliff's shoulder and forced him around. It was Jed, geared up to go trekking, it seemed. He shoved something into Cliff's hands. It was something soft, wrapped in a piece of cloth.
"Don't open it," Jed instructed. "It's for the king. You need to offer him something when you meet him. Where's Tex?"
"Still sleeping," Monopa mused. She had silently approached them and was now heading towards one of the tents. "Tex!" she yelled with her head inside. "Come on, wake up. We need to start moving. The sun is rising. You have twenty seconds to get out here, ready to go."
"Go away!" a different boy from inside yelled in reply. "It's too early!"
There was no audible response from Tex as Monopa stepped away, counting silently, mouthing the numbers to herself. When she began to call out 'ten', Tex burst out of the tent, ran into the commons, and came out with a coil of rope over one shoulder, a couple of oranges and, some carrots.
"Ready!" he said, standing to attention with a grin.
"Let's go then," Monopa said. She gave Cliff a coil of rope and lead the way out of the settlement.
"I'll see you after," Larr said, sort of smiling at Cliff but at the same time, sort of not.
"Here," Tex said to Cliff once they'd entered the field. He handed him an orange and then wondered. "You know how to eat that, right?"
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Post by Ethereal Panda on Jul 23, 2009 12:03:27 GMT 9.5
Cliff only stared blankly with a small gap in his mouth when he realized that Larr wouldn't be coming. A feeling of disappointment washed over him, but Jed's interruption left him with little time to contemplate. The boy left the village looking back over his shoulder at Larr.
Onward, he took the orange and peeled it giving Tax a "I'm not an idiot" look, but quickly let out an amused "hah" before the mood became to serious. Picking up the pace a bit, he moved to Monopa's side. "When I meet the king, what am I to do?" He paused looking at her hair, distracted momentarily in some distant thought. "I assume there is some formality in addressing him." He gently shook the soft object wrapped in cloth.
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Post by Treijim on Jul 23, 2009 12:09:40 GMT 9.5
"I'll tell you when we get there," was all Monopa said to him on the matter. "Would you prefer to go through the trees or around them? It's the same way to the caves, almost, but we keep going along the cliff and we climb a part further east. That's what the rope is for. Or we can go around the trees, but that'll take longer. It depends how good your legs are." She glanced at him sideways.
Tex was behind them and Jed was at the back of the group, constantly looking over his shoulder and up at the sky as though he was expecting it to rain by surprise.
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Post by Ethereal Panda on Jul 23, 2009 12:24:21 GMT 9.5
"Through is fine," Cliff replied. For only a moment more he looked at her. Turning his attention away, he allowed himself to fall back in line.
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Post by Treijim on Jul 23, 2009 12:33:45 GMT 9.5
Tex walked at Cliff's side. He had taken to eating a carrot, and was doing so quite noisily. He seemed itching to talk, but he held it off for a while, possible for fear of being told to go home by Monopa. They went through the trees and after a couple of hours, the sun was definitely in the sky and the cliff with the cave entrances was visible. As they left the trees, they could see the rocky hill that rose up against the cliff, and the approximate place where the cave entrance was that Cliff had been found in. They headed eastward, toward a place where the cliff was gentler and even from a distance, one could see that ascending it would be no harder than climbing a pile of large stones. That was where they would climb.
At the base of it, however, it seemed much larger. Jed approached the stones and took hold of a rope that was draped down the entire length of the cliff. He gave it a good tug and it didn't come free. Testing further, he placed his feet on a boulder and put all his weight into the rope, leaning back almost 45 degrees. The rope didn't budge.
"It's still good," he said. "One at a time. Tex first."
"Me? Aww, why?" Tex whinged, but he obliged and took hold of the rope and began to carefully scale the boulderous slope.
"Confident?" Monopa said wryly.
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