Dreams of the Tempest

[Zach Kaiser]

Whatever the writing might have looked like, it definitely didn't sound anything like Cizokian. Nor did it sound particularly like the Greoulian he was trying to learn, either.

"So, what did you say?" he asked. It sounded kind of like she introduced herself, but it was too long to be just a simple introduction. Or so he guessed; for all he know that really was one for Minnari.

[Nayt]

She was totally expecting that! And counting on it, even! Man, it was a wonder that worked so well. Plans never worked out that well.

"Ummm," Akizetsumei covered her lips to stifle a giggle--which, in part, muffled what she said next, but her falsetto voice was difficult to hide. "Hello, my name is Akizetsumei of Terra and I like you very much."

Which would've been super embarrassing to actually say weeks ago, but now it was pretty much a known fact. Eld was her boyfriend and she was awfully fond of him. She wouldn't be dating him right now if she wasn't! And she definitely wouldn't be bringing him over to meet her parents. Even still, just saying that outright so bluntly made her cheeks flush a bit, visible behind her hands.

It was a wonder she even managed to say all that without slurring it all into one word. Then again, she sort of planned that whole shpeal out; that probably granted her a little boost in confidence.

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld scratched the back of his head bashfully, flushing a bit himself. If it were anyone else he probably wouldn't have reacted much, but there was something about Akizetsumei's earnestness that made his heart jump in ways that others' words didn't.

"W-Well, it's a nice sounding language," he said, unable to come up with anything else to say due to his sudden distraction.

Searching for something else to talk about, he noticed the stuffed dolls again. "So, what are these?" he asked, pointing to them. They looked different than any he'd seen, and that all four of them were the same suggested they somehow went together. What the connection was (and why a kappa of all things was among them), he didn't know.

[Nayt]

"Oh! These?"

That was a suitable enough topic change. If Eld hadn't said anything else, Akizetsumei was just going to get awkwardly quiet, but not actually feel too terribly awkward, until-- just because she kind of felt the urge to now --leaned in to kiss Eld on the cheek. This was probably not the time or the place for that!

"These are from this story my mom used to read to me all the time," Akizetsumei replied, "They're the four main characters. I think Cha is the cutest. Ummmm, anyways! It's called Ayanan d Yerne. Or, ummm . . ."

She paused to think about it. Actually, she'd never heard the title in Common before! Ayanan d Yerne was simply what she always knew it as.

"Journey to the West," Akizetsumei finally said--around the time that she sat on her bed, plucked the kappa doll from her bed, and hugged him to her chest. He looked like a fish-man, and as the story went, he was an immortal who spent so much time underwater that he was disfigured and fish-like. In the form of a stuffed animal, though? Yeah, he was totally the cutest stuffed animal in the world. At least, as far as Akizetsumei was concerned. It certainly helped that he was her favorite character, too.

[Zach Kaiser]

"Oh. Oh!" Suddenly it clicked. "Journey to the West? I read that when I was a kid, I think. It's been such a long time, I hardly remember it." Well, chances were he read a children's version and not the original story, he supposed, if he read it when he was so young. It was a fairly common Cizokian fairy tale.

"I thought it was funny that you had a kappa...that's a Cizokian creature of myth." Though he supposed it wasn't too surprising that it got translated at some point.

"Where did you get the dolls?" he asked. He hadn't seen anything like them before; he wondered if there was some shop that sold them, or if they were custom made.

[Nayt]

"It's still my favorite," Akizets said in reflection, smiling as she thought of the times that her mother read it in Common--then in Minnari. It sounded beautiful in the latter. Absolutely breathtaking. Her mother waited until Akizetsumei was old enough to appreciate language before she did that.

Incidentally, in the Cizokian version of the tale, the kappa was known as Cho Wokai. In the Minnari version of the tale, he was Cha Wujan. Name changes were weird like that!

"My momma made them for me," Akizets said as she squeezed the Cha doll tight, "Years and years and years ago. I loved the story so much that she made them for my sixth birthday."

It would've probably shocked everyone if Akizetsumei were to say that she still very clearly remembered the day that her mother gifted these stuffed dolls to her. She practically squealed, threw her arms around each one individually, then moved on to throw her arms around her mother.

"She still does detail stuff to them, 'cause they're kinda old and sometimes the stitches fall out," Akizetsumei rested her chin against the top of the doll's head. It wasn't hard. They were all about the size of her torso, all designed to be like body pillows to a six year old girl.

[Zach Kaiser]

"She did? That's amazing!" They were really well made dolls; Katalyna obviously had a lot of skill. Eld had been sure that they must have been bought from a professional.

...Though, then again, he wasn't exactly an expert on sewing or anything. But they did look really good, and that's what counted, right?

"Jeez, they must have been bigger then you were when you were six," he observed. She was pretty small even now, he could only assume she was downright tiny when she was younger.

[Nayt]

"Yeah. They were huge back then. Almost as big as me!"

It got to her thinking about her mother, and how she could never have asked for a better mother in a million years. Honestly, though her mother was a horrible cook, she was the warmest and kindest woman Akizetsumei knew. She read to her all the time when she was little, she was always tolerant with her even when Akizets was being exceptionally bratty (as she could be at times), and every little thing she did had so much thought put into it. These stuffies, for instance--or the key necklace that Akizetsumei wore all the time.

Then again, though, it also got her to thinking about other peoples' parents. Noah's, for instance. Noah's dad was not just a horrible father, but a horrible person. Akizetsumei had heard very little of the subject from Noah himself. Most of it was just hearsay and some bits she heard her father mention. From what she heard all around, that man was abusive and neglectful in every way, and when Noah's mother died, he really had no one to keep his father from getting to him. Then, there were parents with whom children fought with. As Akizetsumei thought about it, she really had to count herself lucky. Her parents were great people.

As she continued the train of thought, though, Akizets remembered something Eld said earlier.

"Oh . . . um . . . hey, Eldridge? You mind if I ask a question?" Akizets said meekly--and if she was greeted with a "yes," she'd ask hesitantly: "What was that, um, thing about, um, about your parents?"

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld nodded his assent, letting Akizetsumei continue. It was odd that she'd ask for permission to ask something, but when she did he "Oh...that?" Eld's smile fell a bit. He suddenly wished he'd held his tongue back there, and not mentioned anything about his parents. "It's...umm...complicated."

He sat down on the bed with a sigh. "I sort of had an argument about them because of some...decisions they'd made. Ones they didn't tell me about that they really should have. I...lost my temper, and may have implied that I felt like I was forced to take over the clinic." Okay, there was no "maybe" about it. He'd all but stated it.

[Nayt]

That sounded pretty tough. Akizetsumei felt for Eld. She'd been in more than enough disputes with her father about her future to know what it was like. Their disputes were completely different than Eld and his parents', though . . .

"Oh . . . That's-- I really hope they weren't," Akizetsumei frowned.

It would've really sucked if Eld's parents were like everyone else in the village. Akizetsumei couldn't imagine what it'd be like to have literally no control over her life. Well . . . okay, maybe it would've been a lot smoother and devoid of much less unnecessary drama, but of all things, freedom is what Akizetsumei loved the most, and that's something the Terra clan was founded on: freedom of opportunity. It's just . . . well, being so obviously foreign, opportunity was kind of tough to create, but still!

"Forcing you to take over the clinic, I mean," she elaborated, 'Cause that'd really suck! But-- I guess . . . not . . . too weird around here, I think? A lot of kids get dragged around by their parents and forced to take up their old jobs and stuff."

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld nodded; indeed, a lot kids around here were more or less expected to take up the family business, whether it was a farm or a store or something else. But that was offset by most families having multiple children; if there was even one child that wanted to, then the rest were free to pursue whatever path they wished. He was willing to bed more conflicts occurred over multiple children wanting a business than otherwise.

"They aren't forcing me, exactly...but I know they'd be disappointed if I didn't. Even if they'd never say it." Eld was an only child; there was no one to take it over in his stead. If he didn't, a stranger would probably have to take it once his parents weren't capable of running it anymore. Or it would close down, leaving Galaens as the closest place to get medical assistance.

[Nayt]

The passive-aggressive treatment, then! Akizetsumei had seen a lot of parents like that with their kids. It was super annoying. She would've gone crazy if her parents were like that. Crazier than normal, that is. Her dad was blunt and to the point and her mother . . . well, she was just passive all around. Katalyna didn't have an aggressive bone in her body.

"So . . . I guess that's what you were fighting about?" Akizets asked.

Akizetsumei hugged the Cha doll tightly. She really hated to imagine Eld getting into a fight of any kind with anyone, especially his parents. This was getting to be a pretty solemn topic of conversation. But she wasn't about to go changing it on a whim, not unless Eld decided to first.

"I-- I mean, the whole decisions thing. Did they, um-- I dunno-- do some more stuff that'd push you to taking over the clinic?" Akizetsumei paused for a moment when she realized what she was doing, "And, um, you don't gotta answer if you don't wanna. I'm just bein' nosy."

Well, at least she was honest about it.

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld turned a little red and looked away. It was...a subject he'd been hoping to avoid. But nevertheless he decided to answer her. "I-It's alright," he replied, turned back to her as he regained his composure. "The fight wasn't about that, though. It just sort of...came up during it."

"The fight was actually about something else. My parents sort of...meddled with my life without telling me about it. Not in regards to the clinic, but something more personal."

He looked hard at Akizetsumei, but try as he might he had no way of gauging how she'd react. Only one way to find out, I suppose. "When I was younger, the arranged a marriage for me, then pulled me out of it...all without telling me. I only found out about it recently."

[Nayt]

"Wh-- what?!" she exclaimed almost instantly.

It wasn't that she realized how loud she was just then, and it wasn't that she noticed how quiet the rest of the house got for a brief moment, either. That wasn't at all what quieted Akizetsumei down. Rather, it was the belated feeling of weight drawing down upon her insides that coerced her into a meek quiet.

"W-- wi-- wi--" she stammered meekly, much quieter this time--and though that may easily be perceived as a good thing, it was actually far from it, "W-- with wh-- who?"

--As rather quickly, Akizetsumei's confidence began to wane. The horrible feeling struck her late, but it struck her hard, nonetheless. Doubt arose in the form of a question: did Eld actually know the girl his parents supposedly arranged a marriage with? If he did . . . then did he actually have feelings for her? No! Nononononononononono. That couldn't be it. That couldn't be the case at all.

[Zach Kaiser]

He jumped at her sudden shout, then motioned for her to keep her voice down. This was definitely something he didn't want many people knowing about.

Eld sighed. He'd been fearing that question. If only he could honestly reply that it no one she knew. That would have been nice. As it was, he had a decision to make: did he tell Akizetsumei who it was he'd briefly been engaged to? Or did he keep it a secret for now? He knew she probably wouldn't hold it against him if he decided not to answer, but at the same time he'd feel guilty if he didn't tell her.

"I-If I tell you, you can't tell anyone else, okay? It's...a personal matter to me, and I'd rather not have anyone else find out about it." He was quiet and serious, but in a way that wasn't a bad thing. He was putting a great deal of trust in Akizetsumei; that was part of his decision to tell her. He wanted to return the trust she showed in him.