Blue Skies at Home [Closed]

[Nalaya]

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Faith is the strength through which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.
–Helen Keller

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The Arrival
Sayran, Gylias

Ssivah and shar, the voice and the mind. These were the forces of generation and creativity, the emblem of balance. One without the other could do nothing. It was the two working in tandem that brought clarity and creation, vision and expression. Yasrena had never felt more off balance in her life. The whole world had upended, taking her voice with it when it spiralled down in out of control circles. And her mind...fear had made it scattered and anxious, her thoughts racing a million miles an hour every time she tried to lay down to sleep. She was fifteen, but her eyes had centuries in their depths. The midnight run from Armavir had been the least stressful part of her life since the war started. She gripped her copy of the Linath a little tighter, the one book she’d managed to bring with her from home. There was no way she was leaving without it. It was her parents’, old and dog-eared from folding the thin paper to mark a place or favorite verse. It was underlined in places from when Yasrena had learned how to read.

She was so tired that she’d snapped at Dro when he tugged on her hand and whined about being bored in the busy airport in Mishawaka as they went through refugee processing, but he was only six and so his feelings weren’t hurt for long. Besides, he was the brave one, the cheerful one. Right now, she was holding onto his belt so he wouldn’t try to clamber out of the train’s window. <<Look, Yas! What’s that?>>

<<A popinjay,>> she said. It was work to smile, but she managed. She’d fallen asleep on her feet in the queue at the airport, leaning against a pillar. But it hadn’t lasted. Have to keep moving. Not safe, not safe, she told herself. They’d been running so long and so far that she could barely remember having a home. Now they were a universe away from anything she’d ever known. She barely spoke the language and knew almost nothing about the culture. She was homesick for a warzone and afraid of even the smiling faces. She’d seen so many smiles that had knives in them. But Gylias was supposed to be a land of light and life, so maybe there was hope.

<<It’s so bright and colorful. Do they really talk?>>

<<Only pet ones,>> she said with the sigh of quiet desperation so powerful that only a tired older sibling could muster its like.

It was hard to remember how to hope. She murmured the optimistic, light verses of the Linath over and over again, trying to capture those softer passions. Anything to replace the fear. And the anger, of course. But like her mother had always told her, she didn’t have to know how the song needed to go, so long as she sang it until she believed it.

Yasrena hadn’t sung in a long time now. She was a whisper in the dark.

<<Dro, you’re going to get hurt if you open that,>> Yasrena warned, though she could feel an actual laugh coming on as she saw her brother’s face smushed up against the glass as he tried to take in the whole world at once. Even the landscape was foreign, flat instead of jagged mountains and endless, rugged hills and valleys of wilderness. The plants were tropical, broad and waxy leaves catching the frequent downpours. The air itself was humid, but cleaner than Armavir’s familiar smell. It seemed gentler here, but it felt like sensory overload too—the rain drumming on the window, the endless calls of birds, the buzz of insects, the chatter in a language so far removed from those of her homeland.

Was she going to have friends? Did she even remember how to make them? She felt like a space alien, sitting here with her tattooed face.

Yasrena couldn’t be mistaken for anything but Mak’ur, except for maybe in pitch black—if she kept her mouth shut. She was tall for a Nalayan woman, just a few inches short of six feet, and long limbed. Her features were harsh in their beauty, sharply angled with almond-shaped, slightly hooded green eyes. Her lips were thin and her chin stubborn. Her forest green tattoo of Mak’ur script ran along her cheekbones and over the bridge of her nose, an invocation of spirits for protection. A single green line bisected her lower lip and ran down her chin and throat until it ended just above the dip where her collarbones met. She also had a prayer tattooed on the inside of her left wrist, a few brief words for peace. That was a newer addition. She’d gotten them in Sevan at the airport when they were waiting for a flight out. There had been a scrivener who was one of their fellow refugees, and he’d managed to bring his ink and needles. It was the old fashioned way, with many, many pricks of bone needles. It was a gift from him before he headed to Tennai. It was still a little sore, but it had mostly healed.

Dro was as unmistakable as she was. They shared sandy hair and those green eyes. His face was softer just because of his age, but he had a tattoo in dark, ruby red that ran vertically down the left side of his face, beginning on his forehead. It was a similar invocation, but to different spirits. He was a child of fire, she was one of earth. They were painfully foreign, their differences literally written on their faces.

She prayed, offering up thanks to the spirits for seeing them this far. Yasrena knew there was a lot of work ahead, but she was used to work. Between school and keeping house and helping at her parents’ cafe, she understood what it meant to make ends meet. If you loved something, if you wanted to make it happen, you gave it your everything every day. What was it Anahid Vaneni had once said? Dreams are not made reality by half-heartedness. Yasrena’s were smaller dreams, but they were still ones of peace and they still most certainly required effort. They were going to need a place to live, food to eat, water to drink. That meant a job, preferably a steady one. Waiting tables was the most obvious answer, mostly because she’d done it before and she was usually considered too young to tend bar.

<<“It’s pretty!>> Dro announced, plopping back onto the seat between her and the window. <<Green.>>

<<It is,>> Yasrena agreed. There were more flowers here than there were in Armavir. Her hometown was a very brown and dusty city of concrete and glass, not like Sevan with its old stone and gardens or the cities of the Homeland with their wild parks and delicate spires.

He looked at her quizzically. <<When do we go home? Soon?>>

Yasrena felt her throat close up for a moment. <<I don’t know,>> she admitted. When he looked crestfallen, she put an arm around him and hugged him into her side. <<It’s an adventure, Dro. Like your knights errant have.>> She stirred his bag with her foot, nudging at the book of old Nalayan tales. <<Pretty soon we’ll be fighting dragons and wishing on rings with djinn and meeting spirits.>>

<<You think so?>> he said brightly, snuggling into her side. <<Can I have a pet dragon? I’ll teach it how to talk, like a popinjay.>>

<<Anything is possible,>> Yas said, giving him another squeeze. She could feel the train slowing to a stop and heard the announcement come on. <<But you’re cleaning up after it.>>

“...Now arriving in Sayran…”

She didn’t catch the rest of the announcement, too busy dealing with an excited, chirping Dro and fishing out their papers. They each had a backpack, the extent of what they’d been able to bring with them out of Armavir. <<Come on, Dro.>> Yasrena didn’t know what was waiting for them other than the fact that someone saddled with their case was probably going to meet them at the train station.

When her friend Pella had told her that she needed to expand her horizons, this probably wasn’t what she’d had in mind. She missed her friends.

Dro held her hand obediently, but he was ever at the furthest he could get from her, trying to drag her forward as he craned his neck to see whatever thing caught his eye. He was easily fascinated and a lot stronger than he looked. Yasrena sighed. She felt more like a monkey wrangler than an older sister with him sometimes. She knew she probably looked frazzled when they disembarked, but she was grateful for Dro. Not only did he keep her focused on something other than her own thoughts, but he was a bright spot, childish hope and optimism untroubled by even war.

It’s an adventure, she told herself, trying to ignore her own fatigue. God, but she needed a bath and a bed. Enjoy it. Divine willing, you’ll find a place to belong.

[Gylias]

"Huh? Me?"

That had been Izana's first reaction to being informed that she would be assigned to accommodation duty for a pair of Nalayan refugees due to be resettled in Gylias. The young officer, modest to a fault (in fact, that had been what her commander said - "Modest to a fault, aren't you Izana?", concluding that it was a good fault), had never considered the possibility of her being recommended for such a responsibility.

But now, the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. The probability of her staying in the same position for the rest of her career in the NPF was remote, if not nonexistent. She had a solid record of police service - nothing exceptional, but nothing awful either, just solid reliability. She knew Nalayan, obviously of vital importance. And as unfortunate as it sounded, it was important to make a reassuring first impression on refugees, and there was a logic behind her being suggested as someone who would manage to do so. She was a young officer of 24, average in height, with baby blue eyes and shocking pink hair, which reached down nearly to her waist, and which she left to dangle in front in two strands, each pulled behind her ears.

The briefing also mentioned that the refugees were children - siblings, in fact, one nine years older than the other -, and it was a knowledge that both made Izana honoured by the trust her commander placed in her, and nervous about not frightening them. She had recently found herself lingering in front of a mirror at home, practicing sanding off any edges from her voice and speaking in a soft and comforting tone. It had partly made her think, Kirisakian female voice actors: they seemed to have this remarkable ability to deliver lines in dulcet tones. It hadn't really registered until she thought about it consciously, and now that she was attempting something similar, her respect for their ability to speak in honeyed tones had increased.

However, right now, she was in the police station, sitting on a seat right next to the front desk. The air conditioners hummed soothingly in the background, as it wasn't a day that had much wind so far. There had been no visits today, not a great cause of surprise considering that it was one of the quieter neighbourhoods of Sayran. Izana was taking the opportunity to apply makeup, just in case - currently, she was on applying lipstick with the aid of a compact, the same shade of pink as her hair.

A blonde, short-haired police officer entered the room, giving a relieved exhalation as she closed the door behind her. Izana, looking up, said, "Hi Mandai. How's it been?"

"Pretty boring...", Mandai said with lighthearted nonchalance as she crashed into a spare chair and pulled up to a desk with a computer on it. "Nothing really happened." She smiled, stretched in her seat, and then rested her legs on the empty part of the desk, one on top of the other, and put her hands on the back of her head in a wing shape. "Just the way I love it," she said, winking at Izana.

"You know you're not alone on that, Mandai.", Izana replied. It was exactly the line of work in which one measured the success of their days by how boring they were.

Izana went back to work on her makeup, and it was some moments before Mandai offered, "Today's the day, huh?"

"Yeah," Izana said, glancing at the clock on the wall. "Train arrives at 12:40. I won't be surprised if our first priority is lunch."

Mandai nodded. "Tell me somethin', Iz", she said, "you know Nalayan?"

"Yes, technically," Izana said, putting away her lipstick tube. "It's almost the same thing Aghvan speaks, so I should have no trouble."

"It's weird, isn't it?", Mandai asked, slightly moving her legs. "Same language, but incredibly different people..." She moved her head back a bit to look at Izana. "You know what I mean." It was nothing other than the massive elephant in the room related to Nalaya - Mandai was sufficiently tactful to not say it out loud. With subjects like these, she believed in the old saying: 'better keep your mouth shut and let people think you're a fool, than open it and remove all doubt.'

All doubts were to be removed during their time off, of course - this simply wasn't the time.

Izana nodded. "I know, Man.", she said.

A minute passed before Mandai loudly exhaled, moved her chair (it was one on wheels) to face Izana, and loudly exhaled. "So, you're gonna go be parent for a teenager and their sibling?", she teased.

Izana smiled - that was the Mandai she knew better, clearly wishing to dispel the lugubrious atmosphere. "Integration officer, actually.", she said with mock-fussiness. "It would be more of a legal guardian, temporarily."

Mandai laughed, and lazily raised her finger to point at her - a feat she could only sustain briefly before the effort required to keep it suspended in the air became too exhausting. "Haha, so, just what I said!"

"I'm not adopting them, Man.", Izana said. "I'm just looking after them to make sure they don't have any problems living here."

"Mhm, mhm", Mandai said, mockingly waving off Izana's objections. "I'm just saying, if you start trying to share embarrassing photos, I'm staging you an intervention."

Izana laughed. "What?"

"Isn't... that a thing parents do?", Mandai said, confused.

Izana thought, before chuckling and replying, "Man, you're watching foreign sitcoms again."

Mandai raised her hands in the air. "Well, I been caught.", she joked.

The two shared a laugh, as Izana put on her white gloves and then started for the door, so that she wouldn't risk being late for the meeting. From the coat hanger next to her door, she picked up her hat, and said, "Well, I'm off."

Mandai waved, and said, "Have fun with your charges now, ya hear?"

"I hear, I hear...", Izana said with a laugh as she left the room. She shook her head affectionately, put on her hat - completing her blue uniform - and left the station. She and Mandai went back to when they both enrolled in law enforcement training. They both found themselves oddly drawn to each other as friends, despite being rather different people. Mandai was more of a fun-loving jokester who could get bored easily - Izana had sometimes gotten the impression Mandai specifically buttoned up quite tightly on duty just so she could release more strongly off it. Izana, for her part, was more of a conscientious and quiet type who was almost a poster child for being a police officer. It was clear Mandai appreciated the advantages of having a sensible friend, but it was Izana who, in an odd way, enjoyed Mandai's almost stimulatingly irresponsible tendencies. She saw her purpose in their friendship as making sure Mandai stayed on the side of right - the fun of affectionately lecturing Mandai about how incredibly hard it is to have such an easy life as a police officer and making sure she never got a free ride was only a bonus.

In short order, Izana had made her way to the train station, happily greeting and being greeted by the occasional passersby, and made it onto the platform before the train pulled in. She couldn't be sure which part of the train they were in, and considered that perhaps she should have prepared a piece of paper with their names on it, but rejected the idea as "too airporty".

It took some minutes after everyone disembarked from the train, but she spotted two youngsters who most resembled the description of the ones she would be responsible for looking after the wellbeing of. She approached them calmly, and once she was close enough to be noticed, waved at them, looking alternately at the tall one and the short one. (Piggyback rides must be really good, she thought.) "<Hello>", she said in Nalayan, "<Are you by chance Yasrena and Dro?>"

[Nalaya]

Dro heard his name and immediately his head whipped around to look at the woman who had spoken. <<Your hair! It looks like red dye in milk! You talk like us! What happened to your mark? It’s all gone!>> the little boy chirped with excited fascination, hanging off his sister’s arm.

<<Dro!>> Yasrena said, dismayed. It was bad enough he was chattering at strangers, particularly ones in uniform—being rude too was a bit much. You’re not in Armavir anymore, Yasrena. Relax, she told herself. It didn’t help, particularly since Dro’s fidgeting was becoming an attempt to scale her body. She was about ready to give his head a light smack to get him to pay attention and be quiet. Really, what he needed was some time running around outside and playing. They’d been cooped up in Armavir for weeks and weeks, then in the back of trucks as they were smuggled through the Homeland to behind government lines again, then in the terminals at Sevan and Mishawaka, and finally the train. His little boy energy made him restless and she hadn’t let him scale every vertical surface he could reach like he wanted to.

<<But I want to know...>> Dro whined, mostly because she was trying to make him sit still.

Yasrena always tried to indulge his curiosity, but there were limits. Still, she explained, <<She doesn’t have marks. She’s og’elend, like everyone here.>>

<<But she talks Nalayan.>> His experienc was very limited, even with unmarked Nalayans. He’d spent his whole life in the Shrjani Nshanneri, surrounded by other ku’nal and their marked faces every day. He’d never even set foot in wider Armavir except the day the war suddenly broke out and they were stranded at the headquarters of Esperance International in downtown Armavir rather than their little fragment of homeland away from the Homeland.

Yasrena sighed. <<I know, and you were very rude. Say sorry. In English.>>

Dro huffed and tried to dig into the ground with his toe as he pouted. <<But I want to kn—>>

<<Dro,>> his older sister warned firmly. <<Say sorry to the lady.>>

“Sorry, pretty lady,” he said with an appropriately chastised air, looking up at Izana with his big, jade-colored eyes.

Someday, when Dro grew up, Yasrena was certain he was going to be in a lot of trouble with young ladies’ fathers. She groaned a little bit in embarrassment, feeling her cheeks start to color. Fortunately, it barely showed on her tan skin. She and Dro were both naturally darker of skin than any Gylian they’d run across so far. <<You’re a troublemaker, has’tras.>> He started to squirm again the minute she looked up at Izana to talk. Yasrena had had enough. She swept her wriggling brother up, slinging him over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Dro laughed, delighted with this new arrangement. It did seem to calm him down a little bit, though he’d probably free himself in a few minutes.

“Many sorries,” Yasrena said in English, her accent thick and exotic. She spoke haltingly, wishing very much that she had Pella’s grasp of the foreign tongue. She’d focused on the study of her own country’s languages. “He…means good. I am Dalael Yasrena Hyluan dal Istolil.” She put her hand over her heart when she said her own name before patting her brother’s back. “He is Dalael Dro Hyluan dal Istolil.”

“Dro!” her brother chirped again, starting to try to swing himself back and forth. Yasrena set him down despite his noise of disappointment with the notion of being returned to his feet on the ground. When he he whined and tugged on her arm, <<Up!>>, she flicked the end of his nose lightly. He stuck out his tongue at her and then crossed his arms, pouting.

At least while he was sulking for the next few minutes, she would be able to have a conversation. “I try to use English when talk to Gyli,” she explained. “For the get better. Not pretty of sound, yes. But we are here, here is not Nalaya, not speak Nalayan. You are…” She hesitated, feeling her mouth go dry and her stomach knot at even the thought of that horrible word. “...not milits’iayi?” Yasrena didn’t see a rifle or a gun at all, which was a good first step, but also confusing. Uniforms meant rifles. They were good, but they still had the power to take life just as much as protect it. “Wait...no. Government. You are...police?” She hoped so—she’d always liked the RV, her homeland’s version of police. Some of them had walked her home from school when things were getting bad there. It had made her feel safe.

Safety was a rare and precious commodity, in Yasrena’s mind. She was well aware that her world was a precarious place.

Dro had gone very still when he heard that word in his native tongue. For a moment, the pout evaporated. He wrapped his arms around his sister and hid his face in her side. <<I want Mom and Dad.>>

Yasrena’s face softened. <<You’re stuck with me, has’tras,>> she said, stroking his hair to reassure him. <<We’re okay. Gylias is peaceful. Remember? You liked the movie.>>

He shook his head against her side. <<I want to go home.>>

She peeled him off her and knelt down so she was looking him eye to eye, her hands on his shoulders. <<I need you to trust me, Dro. We’re going to be here for a while. We’ll make friends and get a place to live and be good for Mom and Dad. Come on, little man. Be brave for me, okay?>>

He nodded, those big green eyes solemn. <<Okay.>> He looked up at Izana and then pointed at her. “Who?”

Yasrena sighed. Times like this made her appreciate why her mother’s hair had started to go grey early. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I was teaching him...to speak...but he is little and very...how say? Energized?”

[Gylias]

As far as first impressions went, Izana considered it a success. She hadn't managed to scare off Yasrena and Dro right away, and that was what mattered - arguing over whether it could have been better was just pointless. In fact, she found Dro's eagerness charming, though Nansa only knew how his sister must have felt. She didn't even need to pay attention to what she said, or understand it; it was the voice and the facial expressions that said it all.

Nevertheless, she was not one to discourage a child's curiosity. She had tried to get a word in earlier, but Yasrena was too busy talking with Dro, and it was rude to interrupt. Hearing Dro address her as "pretty lady" was endearing: she appreciated acknowledgements of the work she had put into her appearance. And, if Dro thought of her first as a pretty lady, it meant that her would not find her intimidating because of her status as a police officer. (Who even knows what they've had to see, she thought, People with guns. Izana didn't carry one, fortunately.) She moved her head slightly downwards, meeting Dro's gaze with her own blue eyes, and said "That's alright." with gentle humour. She had more she was going to say, but Yasrena promoted Dro to passenger on her shoulders before she had that opportunity.

Izana listened to what Yasrena was saying, her face neutral in expression but bearing subtly friendly inflections - the eyebrows arching gracefully above her eyes and pointing downwards (if one tried to draw and extend them so that they intersected, it would have made the shape of the bottom of an upside-down U), her mouth's edges curved upward, slightly enough to be missed by a naked eye but perceptible enough to not give the wrong impression to her listeners. As she enjoyed teasingly reminding Mandai, as police officers they had to dedicate significant efforts to having apparently blessed lives, friendly authority figures in one of the safest countries in Tyran. Gylians knew mostly about how tough and demanding the recruitment and screening process was to keep out people with sociopathic or authoritarian tendencies - one thing that kept the police in high esteem -, but it was a more unsung part of the training, how hopefuls would have refined their sensitivity to other people, and work on their ability to display genuine concerns and friendliness instead of shallow plastic smiles, such that they could do it even when they felt tired or overwhelmed. It was one thing Izana felt inspired by in her line of work, the grace under pressure element - although if she was writing a children's story, she would have probably said it was like running with all their might to stay in place.

As Dro badly failed a diplomacy check against Yasrena's refusal to keep him on her shoulders, Izana replied, "It is all good, no harm done." Yasrena had clearly wanted to practice her English, and Izana wasn't about to defy that. She tipped her hat (removing it completely was too servile and degrading), and said, "Lovely to meet you both."

Izana laughed gently with closed eyes. "Yes, I understand.", she said sympathetically. "That's the only way to get better." She might not have realised it, but on some level she was trying to simplify her own sentences, all the better to ascertain roughly where Yasrena's own English level was and thus meet in the middle. "Just know that if you ever have problems, we can talk in Nalayan if it's easier."

It did not escape her how Dro had flinched, and even Yasrena seemed like she needed to swallow very hard to ask if she was milits’iayi. She thought, Oh... how regrettable... I'm sorry. She held her hands clasped together in front of her pelvis, and nodded. "Yes," she said, "That's correct. I'm a police officer. Not a soldier, not a militia, or anything like that." (She said "militia" with a ts in the middle instead of a ʃ sound, perhaps thinking it would make it clearer she wasn't anything like Nalayan militias.) Whether disambiguating that she did work for the government was necessary, it was not needed in the end: she left Yasrena enough space to speak to her brother as she needed. She pulled her head back slightly and politely made sure she didn't hear what they were saying.

Izana smiled. "Yes, energised works.", she told Yasrena. "But if you want the adjective, that would be energetic. Young and energetic." She gave Dro a warm glance, bending her knees somewhat to bring herself closer to his level, and added, "It's a good trait. Don't be ashamed of it." Ordinarily, she would have ended that sentence with "dear" or a similar affectionate term, but having to gingerly feel her way around a rapport with Nalayan refugees had given her a subtle self-consciousness about holding back, lest she trespass unseen boundaries and discomfort them.

She pulled back to her normal standing position, looked at both Yasrena and Dro, and spoke at a slightly slower pace but confidently. "Good to meet you, Yasrena and Dro.", she said. She didn't want to have their first impression of her include her getting their full names wrong. She wasn't sure about offering a handshake in case it might have seemed like an unintended invasion of personal space, and instead settled for placing her right hand over her chest and saying, "I am Izana Réuney. I'm a police constable, and will be responsible for your wellbeing and accommodation here."

"You've had a long way here, you must be tired. Do you need something to eat, perhaps? Or should we just go to your apartment?"

[Nalaya]

<<Where’d your name go? Is it gone like the mark?>> Dro asked, hanging off Yasrena’s arm again. He seemed to have recovered his daring with his sister’s reassurance.

Yasrena couldn’t help a frown of disapproval. <<Don’t be so nosey. It’s rude,>> she said, poking her brother in the side.

He giggled and squirmed, almost slipping out of her grip. She deftly maneuvered him around until she could get a good hold on him again with the ease of a girl clearly accustomed to doing this. Being nine years older meant she spent a lot of time looking after him while her parents worked. Her father had hurt his back badly just two years after Dro was born, so he couldn’t go running after Dro and sometimes couldn’t even get out of bed. Considering he’d been a construction worker and brought in income that way, it was a serious blow to the family and she had tried to help her mother pick up the slack.

It meant that her life had been a delicate balance of school, work, and play that was altogether too easily upset by even normal hiccups in daily life—a civil war was far too much to just take in stride.

“Accommodation? Apartment?” Yasrena repeated, feeling her hopes rise slightly. Divine, but she felt like a popinjay herself. “We have place, Siruhi Réuney?” She really was going to need a job.

Her stomach growled at the mention of food. The last thing she’d eaten was a granola bar in Sevan, wolfed down in a hurry as they reached the front of the queue. Dro had gotten the actual meals...except for on the run from Armavir to safer areas, which had been non-stop with no food and very little water. Neither of them had complained, even though she knew Dro had hated it. She’d carried him as much as she could so he could conserve his energy, just in case something happened to her. Yasrena sighed and fished around in her pockets for the small wad of cash she had left. She’d made the exchange at the airport. It wasn’t a lot of money, not with how little she’d had by the end of their trip through Nalaya, but it was probably enough to get something hot to fill them up for now. She glanced down at her brother. <<Hungry?>>

Dro nodded emphatically, hopping up and down at the idea of food. <<Kadaif?>> he said hopefully.

<<We’ll see,>> she said, ruffling his hair once she’d found it in her back pocket. She looked back at Izana. “Food, please?”

“Food, please!” Dro agreed brightly, repeating his sister’s request with conviction and enthusiasm.

Yasrena laughed despite herself and shook her head a little. “Energetic.” She adjusted her backpack on her shoulders and then let Izana lead the way, holding onto Dro by his hand so he couldn’t squirm free. If she held onto his backpack or his shirt, she’d end up just holding that while he scampered off shirtless or sans backpack. Wrangling Dro when he wanted to run around was beyond a full time job as far as effort required. However, mention of food kept him close to Yasrena. He knew he wouldn’t get to eat if he ran off, if only because she couldn’t get food to him.

As she followed Izana towards food, she explained, “I...hear...more good than I speak. I need...work. Maybe not talking.”

Yasrena had worked a lot of jobs even over the course of her short life. She’d helped in the café and made a fair amount of cash by sewing, doing alterations for people as well as making garments. It was hard work that left her with sore fingers and tired eyes, but it was well worth it when she’d been able to buy a cellphone and rather a lot of music. She loved the glow of accomplishment it gave her. There was something special about buying a luxury for herself after putting that time and effort in. Her parents had been so proud of her too.

My grown up girl, her father said, messing up her hair affectionately while her mother just beamed. See? Hard work pays off.

She knew she needed something like that again, something that she could lose herself in instead of all the anxiety and stress that an uncertain future promised. She wanted to go back to school too, but that was more important for Dro than her and she knew that she might not have time between looking after him, learning a language while teaching it to her brother simultaneously, and working a job. Yasrena was amazed her hair hadn’t turned grey already. But, no matter how worried she was, this was far, far better than Armavir already.

Here, everyone looked so...happy. No matter how much she had to work, it would be worth it if she could promise even a fraction of that to Dro.

<<Do I go to school here?>> Dro asked curiously, looking from Izana to his sister.

<<Yes,>> Yasrena said firmly. <<And don’t think you can wriggle out of it, wiggle-worm.>>

He batted his eyes, doing his best to look adorable. <<Can I have a football like home, Yas?>>

She felt her heart soften. He’d loved to play, even if he was too little to play with her and her friends. Yasrena had been the one who’d taught him how the game worked. The ball was so big next to his skinny frame. <<Once we get settled and we have some more money, Dro. By your nameday, I promise.>>

Dro grinned and did a little fist pump. <<Yes!>>

His sister tapped the end of his nose, smiling when he crossed his eyes to try and look at her fingers. “Energetic,” she said with amusement. It was hard to feel too bad when he was in a playful mood. Dro kept her from getting trapped in her own head too much. She wasn’t certain what she would do without him. Hopefully, she would never have to find out.

“Come on,” she said in English, pairing it with a little tug on his hand. “Siruhi Réuney will show us food.”

“Food!” Dro cheered, making his sister laugh.

It was suddenly looking like a much better day than it'd started out as.

[Gylias]

Izana could find herself already taking a liking to Yasrena and Dro's presence. The thought of her hair being like red dye in milk elicited a giggle, and the way Yasrena could manoeuvre around and keep her brother within her grasp she found particularly charming. It was heartening to think that, even amidst conflict and unimaginable hardships, these were two siblings who still loved and had fun with each other, the way only siblings could. She was preparing to reassure Yasrena she didn't mind Dro's curiosity, but she preempted her by asking instead about the apartment.

"Yes, you have an apartment," she said. "It's standard issue: two rooms, since we figured you might each require your own privacy, and a kitchen and bathroom. You'll have it all to yourselves; the people handling your case told me they thought arranging suitable roommates would be an additional complication this early." Izana wasn't completely sure how the lack of a living room or the lack of roommates would be taken by Yasrena and Dro. She wasn't familliar with typical Nalayan living arrangements to work out how different their accommodation would be. The sentence about roommates came with a bit of a hard swallow, as it sounded to her like it could be taken for separation. Hence, she added, "Ultimately, whether you wish to have roommates, and who you would like to share the flat with, will be your choice. It was not our place to make that choice for you."

It was clear from their reactions that the subject of food was something she had been correct on. The only snag was that she hadn't actually come up with any ideas of what to get them. The thought of taking them to an Armenian restaurant crossed her mind, but she dismissed it almost reflexively. Have you ever met a Kirisakian and said, 'Hey, why don't we go to the Kirisakian restaurant?', she thought. Don't be ridiculous.

What was clear was that now that it had been brought up, it was an issue that needed to be resolved quickly. (Well, it wasn't mandatory, but it damn straight was the right thing to do.) Izana chuckled at Dro's enthusiasm, nodded sagely and began to walk off the platform, towards the exit from the train station. In the absence of an established idea, she settled quickly upon an effective stop-gap measure: buy Yasrena and Dro a takeaway. Something quick to get that could keep them going until they had something to fill their stomachs properly. So... in other words, a snack.

"Of course. Let me check something," she told Yasrena, before reaching for her mobile to quickly look up something. She hadn't wanted to burden herself with anything more than what she already had on herself for the meeting, feeling it prudent. Colleagues' stories had made her way to her, of refugees who seemed frightened by the sight of a police officer with a dossier or a notepad in their hands. Given where some of the places they arrived from were, she understood the apprehension. She had at least stored the basics she would need to remember about the siblings in a note on her mobile. "Oh, this is good," she said, putting away her mobile. "I couldn't remember your age, Yasrena, I wasn't sure for a second if you were 14 or 15. But you're 15, so you will be able to work."

Sayran wasn't a large city, even by the standards of a country like Gylias that still saw itself fundamentally as a small country. It had only somewhat over 200.000 people, putting it about halfway down the field in terms of population. The main Sayran train station wasn't as large as that of Velouria or Mishawaka - the former mostly from some lingering pretensions to grandeur that had now, stripped of any obsession, become enchanting, and the latter mainly as the hub of Gylias' public transport networks. So there was no chance of finding any vendors before leaving to grab a snack. Izana caught a glimpse of Yasrena playing with Dro's nose, which made her giggle and intertwine her hands in front of her chest briefly. It was a gesture she had picked up from some movie, and liked it enough to do it habitually when she witnessed something full of warmth.

"Haha, yes," she said with a chuckle, "not to worry, there'll be food. I hope you don't mind if I get you something to eat first before the proper food? That way you won't be very hungry, if the lunch takes a while."

Izana had the fortune of stepping out onto the street just as a sudden gust of wind blew by, requiring her to hold her hat with her left hand. She smiled with closed eyes and softly made a pleased "Mmm..." sound. As it passed, she opened her eyes and looked around. The closest street vendor she could see was to the right of the station, and she accordingly led Yasrena and Dro in that direction. The pavement itself was concrete, but the street was lined with palm trees, tall ones, lining up as far as one could see, some even stretching taller than the actual buildings on the street. The sway and rustle of their leaves in the wind was a steady sonic presence in the background of the street scenes, and it provided the welcome shade without which the heat of the sun would have beat down harder on those outside. (Most Gylian streets were in fact lined with trees for this very reason. It really helped when people decided they wanted to go out wearing more clothing.)

"We had some clouds pass by earlier," Izana said to Yasrena while walking, for the sake of conversation. "Did you catch them on your journey? The meteo said there might be rains today, but we haven't had anything so far." (She pronounced the word "meteo" by slipping into an unmistakable French accent.)

Reaching the vendor, Izana decided to purchase two sandwiches, of skewer-grilled chicken in bread with salad and onions, for the siblings. It cost her Ћ1.500 each, for which she fished out her card and scanned it on the vendor's reader. Gylian street food was more expensive than other countries', of that there was no doubt. But at the same time, it was well-made, she could pay with her debit card instead of needing to lug around cash all the time, and the cart was quite well-designed as well, especially in insulation and filtering the inevitable smoke from grilling meat.

She had arrived at a good time, and in only two minutes she handed Yasrena and Dro each their sandwich, leaning down slightly to give Dro's his. "This should help until we get lunch," she said, looking at both of the siblings. "Wouldn't want such a lovely pair of siblings to have growling stomachs."

She then resumed leading Yasrena and Dro to the nearest proper eatery, making small talk with them as she could.

[Nalaya]

Yasrena wasn’t about to complain about having a home of their own. It was better than being housed, in a basement for weeks at a time with dozens of other people, hidden beneath people’s stairs or camped out in the Sevan International Airport among the crowds. She was incredibly grateful for the places that had sheltered them, but it wasn’t ideal or tenable as a long-term solution. It was probably going to be quieter than she’d become used to, but there was nothing wrong with that. Even though they had two bedrooms, she knew that she’d be staying in Dro’s room in case he had a nightmare. Hopefully her own didn’t wake him up. Eventually, they wouldn’t be so skittish and uncertain, but for the meantime, it was a fact of life.

Roommates might not be a bad idea, she decided, based on the rent. “The apartment...how much per month?” Yasrena asked, already trying to construct her mental budget. It was hard without knowing what she’d make at a job….or what job she’d have and where it was. After all, if it wasn’t in walking distance, that could be another expense. Hopefully they had free metro like Armavir had. She’d also have to figure out where to look for a job. She wasn’t certain whether or not they necessarily had the job boards the way Armavir did.

The mention of her age gave her pause. She’d worked before when she was younger than fifteen. She supposed it was a matter of law. It made some sense. In Nalaya, you had to be thirteen or older, unless it was a family business, but you were covered by all the same laws regarding labor even if you were under eighteen. While the majority of people in Nalaya lived well, though not extravagantly so, it often meant working hard. Every ethnic group had their own ethic about it, but the sayings were similar in their emphasis on the value of it.

Sayran was beautiful. Nalaya did have palm trees, though the Homeland had mostly date palms growing around oases. These were more tropical. The shade was welcome, as to Yasrena and Dro, the humidity made the heat slightly more unpleasant. They were used to a dry heat. “We saw the...cloudiness, yes,” Yasrena said. She tucked her free hand into her pocket as they watched, since her brother was currently behaving reasonably well with the expectation of food in the forefront of his mind. “There was a...sprinkle?”

When Izana paid for their meal, Yasrena felt a surge of gratitude, but also embarrassment. She was particularly sensitive to owing people, mostly because the last thing she wanted was to be a burden on someone else. But realistically, she wasn’t going to be able to afford this and lunch too, not if she wanted to be able to buy anything afterwards. Yasrena was familiar with the fine art of stretching resources as far as they could go. Her parents had been good at it. “Thank you so much, Siruhi,” she said, dipping her head in a nod to Izana. “It is...very appreciated.”

Dro’s whole face lit up at the sandwich. He hadn’t had regular hot food for quite a while, though there were people who did bring them home-cooked meals once they were safe in Sevan. On the run from Armavir, it was all protein bars, nuts, raw vegetables, and fruit. Anything that could be eaten on the move with no preparation was the name of the game. It wasn’t hard to make the little boy happy. It was also big enough that he was probably going to be full for a while, until he ran it all off. He wolfed down his food as if ravenous, which she supposed he probably could be. Still, it was an impressive feat.

<<My bag is heavy,>> Dro whined, starting to squirm once he was finished eating. He wasn’t hungry any more, which meant he was probably going to resume his wiggle-worm ways. They were almost to the restaurant, but that wasn’t enough to stop him from reverting to his natural state: mostly wild. <<Yas…>>

Yasrena knew exactly where this was going. <<If I let go of you and carry that bag, you have to promise to stay close.>>

He nodded enthusiastically and dropped his backpack unceremoniously. The moment she let go of his hand, he was off like a shot. Fortunately, he didn’t run far. He bolted up to one of the palm trees a good ways ahead of them and then started to climb. She wasn’t certain how the hell he was so fast at it, but pretty soon he had climbed up to the base of the leaves. <<Yas, Siruhi, look! I’m up high!>> he called down to the pair of them, grinning proudly.

She sighed. <<Come down, has’tras, before you fall and crack your head open.>>

<<But I can see all kinds of things!>> Dro leaned out from the tree, craning his neck to get a better look. He had his fingers dug into the grooves and fissures of the palm tree’s trunk and was doing a fine job of defying gravity.

Yasrena felt like she was going to have a heart attack. <<Dro!>> His monkey-like climbing habits were going to be the death of her.

[Gylias]

Izana was somewhat surprised that Yasrena's first follow-up question after being told they had accommodation was about the price. It made sense - if anything, it made it clear (if it wasn't already) that Yasrena was a responsible youngster who had to grow up much faster than Izana did, given the circumstances. She made no outward sign of it, but internally she pondered for a moment the melancholy thought of whether Yasrena had even had much of a childhood, given the circumstances.

"Ah, the rent...", she said, "It's roughly Ћ175.000 per month. Most rents in Gylias are actually weekly, and the weekly one for the apartment is Ћ43.500." She looked at Yasrena with a reassuring facial expression. "You don't need to worry about the rent, though. You'll receive housing assistance, which will cover the whole cost." Clearly, they haven't been notified of what financial support they can count on, she thought. Understandable, getting them here was the priority...

Izana nodded. "If it was short, it's also called a 'shower'," she said. "Although, if you don't want to use it because that's also the word for washing yourself, I understand, haha."

When she gave the siblings their food, Dro had lit up almost instantly, eliciting a chuckle from Izana, but Yasrena seemed more reserved in nodding. Izana crouched down slightly to bring her face to Izana's level, and placed a hand on Yasrena's shoulder. "You're welcome, Yasrena," she replied. She jokingly added, "Don't wolf it all down in one go!" She then got back up and resumed leading the siblings towards a restaurant, having decided on the fly to just pick the first restaurant they would happen to get to. Though she had concluded with a joke, she had vaguely felt like Yasrena had needed some reassurance back there, judging from her reaction to being given the sandwich, and hoped she had provide it. What that was, or whether it was anything, I don't know, she thought. I guess we just don't know each other very well yet.

It was right as she spotted the entrance to a restaurant on their side of the street and was about to lead them to it that she heard the slight commotion, and the unmistakable tone of "responsible older sister scolding" from Yasrena. It could only mean one thing.

When she turned and saw Dro having climbed up a palm tree, it was obvious that that was not the thing. The sight of the long-limbed boy scampered up a trunk and looking around curiously made Izana laugh affectionately (and vaguely think of her playing hide and seek as a child).

"<Dro, you really shouldn't scare your sibling like that.>", Izana said, moving closer to the tree and positioning herself right under Dro. She gently placed her hands on Dro, propping him up against the tree, and then pointed towards the east, asking him, "<There, do you see the park?>" Fair Park wasn't directly visible from where they were, but given that he was up a tree, she thought he might be able to catch a glimpse of it. Perhaps one of the tents or sculptures, jotting out of the surrounding greenery. She thought that focusing Dro on that would make it easier to coax him down and back into the protection of his sister.

[Nalaya]

You don’t need to worry about rent, though.

The individual words made sense. It was when they became that sentence that all comprehension of their meaning evaporated. Places to live required money. Money required a job. It was that simple. Yasrena couldn’t help her confusion, but she bit her tongue. The thought was making her realize how overwhelmed she was feeling by the sudden change, and she didn’t want to show that in front of Dro.

“Work…” Yasrena said, letting it trail off for a moment as she thought. She didn’t think anyone would hire her as a waitress with her heavy accent and questionable grammar. That meant falling back on the trade she’d learned helping out her grandfather: sewing. He’d been a skilled tailor, though he hadn’t passed the business down to his youngest son. Her father didn’t have the patience for it. He’d taught her everything she needed to know and then some, though Gylians had different sensibilities about clothing than Nalayans. Still, she knew quite a few stitches, how to alter garments, and the qualities of most fabrics. “Do you...is there...a place where they need someone who can sew?”

Once Dro was up the tree, of course, work and her food were forgotten. She knew he was a climber, as he had done it virtually his whole life, but she was still always convinced he would fall and really hurt himself. With some of the heights he’d dropped from, it was a miracle he’d never broken a bone. <<Dro, down! Now!>> she said sharply.

Dro huffed and then shifted his grip on the tree. He grumbled something mostly inaudible about his sister never being any fun and let go abruptly, dropping to the ground. The ridges of the palm tree scraped away at the knee of his pants, well on their way to creating a hole in the knees of his jeans. <<Fine,>> he said, scuffing at the ground with one toe. He had his head lowered and his hands in front of him in the universal posture of a chastised child.

<<We’ll see if the park has things for you to climb or maybe a swing set,>> Yasrena said, softening slightly.

Dro’s face lit up. <<Okay!>>

She ruffled his hair. <<You’re a little troublemaker. Come on, let’s go see.>> She looked at Izana, expression apologetic. “He is...wild thing. Always.”

[Gylias]

Izana assumed from the fact that Yasrena changed the subject to work that either she hadn't understood the part about her qualifying for housing assistance, or she had ignored it. I suppose it might be too much to ladle at once, she thought. Probably save it for the station, it'll be a better time later. "There is," she said with a laugh, "You've picked the one line of work that's always in demand. There should be, at least. I haven't been in that field, but finding someone who needs an assistant shouldn't be difficult." Job advertisements were at least more organised and easy to look up, so Yasrena wouldn't have had to pore over umpteen different agencies or advertising services just to find places to work, let alone sign up for them.

Dro landed well on the ground, which relieved Izana - she was worried from the sudden way he dropped that he would hurt himself. She wasn't sure if her idea was actually going to be of much help. To be fair, she'd never had to deal with a child with this much of a predilection for climbing. "That's alright," she responded to Yasrena. "They could be a mountain climber one day." She raised her right hand and slowly drew a semicircle in front of herself. "Climbing the tallest mountains in Tyran. How's that sound?", she said, with a wink at the end.

"I owed you a lunch, didn't I?", Izana said as she directed the siblings towards the restaurant that was close to them. After all, how could Dro be expected to expend energy on exploring the park if he didn't replenish it beforehand? The place was quite busy when they entered, but the staff were able to find them a free table, in the middle of the room. Izana sat herself down on the chair that faced towards the exit, leaving Yasrena and Dro to take the chairs adjacent to the room's wall, which were near some large flowers. Good thing I got them the sandwiches, haha, they might've tried the plants instead, she thought. She ordered the same dish for all three of them: sausages with rice and beans, with a salad of lettuce leaves and onions. It was reasonably close to what one would call a standard Gylian dish, and it wouldn't take too long to arrive either.

Izana looked at Yasrena with a playful expression. "So, Yasrena, what's the tallest thing your sibling's climbed so far?", she said. Making conversation wasn't a bad idea. It would keep the focus away from how long the food would take, and give Yas some aid in her eternal battle as a sibling to keep Dro from getting into trouble.

[Nalaya]

Yasrena sighed when she caught Dro’s hand again. “No mountain is safe,” she acknowledged with a touch of tired humor.

Dro seemed intent upon scaling her again before reluctantly returning to just swinging their joined hands back and forth. He didn’t settle down even a little bit when they made it to the restaurant, trying to look at everything all at once until Yasrena hissed at him in a sharp puff of breath. Her glare hadn’t done anything to slow him down. Looking somewhat chastised, he started to play with one of the plants that was nearby. She wanted to slap her face with her palm when she saw him tearing one of the leaves to make little patterns. Maybe if she ignored it, it would go away.

Yasrena smiled a little despite herself at the question. “He climbed...how say?...fire escape? At Hin K’are Hotel,” she said. “And ran rooftops, like little boys do.” Her parents were fairly lenient even for Nalayans, granted.

How else will he learn? her father had said with amusement, watching Dro scale the olive tree in the front yard. It is only by falling that we come to know how to pick ourselves up again. Maybe that was why Dro had never cried much even when he hurt himself. Her parents stayed calm, so they didn’t frighten him into more tears and panic. It was a miracle he’d never broken a bone, but he always seemed to spring right up again.

Yasrena snatched her brother’s hand when he started to move towards the flower. <<No,>> she said with firm disapproval. <<Eat your food.>>

He flicked a piece of leaf at her instead, pouting. She hated it when he turned into a little monster, but it was part of being six, homesick, and frustrated.

Yasrena thought about smacking him, but she didn’t. It wouldn’t help and she adored Dro, even if he was driving her insane right now. <<Keep it up and you’ll be doing pushups outside, Dro,>> she snapped. Her options for handling him were fairly limited in a restaurant. Normally her parents would make him somehow repair the damage he’d done in one of his little outbursts: if he ripped up his bed, for example, he’d have to make every bed in the house again.

<<You’re not Mom,>> he said sulkily, eyes downcast.

<<I know. But she’d want you to be good,>> Yasrena said. <<Eat your food.>>

Dro gave his plate a skeptical look. He was used to Mak’ur food, spicy or sour or bitter, and the more general Nalayan cuisine. Dro in particular liked spicy things—he’d drink hot sauce if he was left unattended with a bottle. <<Yas…>>

She leaned over and grabbed the pepper shaker, adding a fair amount to his food. If she let him do it, there would be copious amounts of pepper everywhere. <<There. Better?>>

He reached for the pepper shaker and whined when she set it down out of his reach. He moved like he was going to climb onto the table to get it, but Yasrena grabbed him deftly and pinned him back in his chair. Disappointed, he finally settled on eating some of his food. Most of it ended up played with, his grubby fingers rolling lettuce leaves around his pieces of sausage to make cloaks. What he really needed, he decided, was a toothpick or too, to give his little sausage army spears to go with their cloaks.

Yasrena bolted down her own food, conditioned by now to think she might not have another chance for a while. Her world was an uncertain one, at least for now. She stopped eating when her stomach hurt and not before, glancing over at her brother to see him sculpting his rice into heaped walls like the earthenworks around Siunik with his bare hands. <<Dro, it’s a plate, not a playground.>>

He waved a hand at her as if dismissing her disapproval with a magic wand, choosing not to answer her.

Yasrena could see that he’d gotten food everywhere. She looked at Izana with deeply apologetic eyes. “He does this,” she said, both embarrassed and worried about the repercussions. She hated causing people this much work. “Many sorry. We should go to...apartment after. We need baths.”

That was the other thing that was bothering Yasrena. She knew she didn’t look great and neither did Dro. Their clothes were dirty, they were unkempt, and neither of them had slept in a bed in a long time. There had to be a smell, which was not a good feeling. A small amount of dirt was excusable, but her last shower had been in Sevan. Her tan skin would probably be a few shades lighter after a proper chance to clean up, not that it would make her stick out any less. She could feel eyes on her, giving her that uncomfortable feeling of being ill at ease in her own skin. Maybe they weren’t judging her, but she was judging herself. It was hard because this hadn’t been her whole life. She had been normal before all this, maybe poorer, but she didn’t miss meals and she always had a shower available. She’d gone to school and had new clothes about once a year and her parents had made certain enough money was budgeted in that she could chase her dreams. The whole thing had gone so wrong and it hadn’t even been anything within her control.

Control was a funny thing that way. She’d prided herself on it. Being the calm, collected one of her friends with a tight hold over her own temper. Being a good student with command of numerous subjects. Being a good singer with mastery over her voice. The last was the hardest because it had always been such an integral part of her identity. She’d been talented, incredibly gifted at it, and had worked hard, hitting impossible notes with ease, gliding through runs and blending her head and chest voices effortlessly. Rich tone, delicate vibrato, technical skill—those were all things her teachers had praised her on. Now, she could barely force herself to talk. Singing was out of the question.

Shar and ssivah. Where had hers gone? Their absence made her feel hollow. But maybe it would return once they felt safe, and maybe it would bring her confidence back with it. Or...maybe not.

Yasrena tried not to worry about it. It was easier to just duck her head down and think about necessity. She had to have a job. She had to teach Dro to speak and understand English. She had to keep a roof over them and food in them and clothes on them. They would be starting over completely from scratch here. That had to take priority.

Tomorrow. I'll think about it tomorrow, she thought.

[Gylias]

Izana watched with fascination the antics of Dro and Yasrena. Even if one couldn't understand their language, it was possible to understand everything from just their interactions and body language. (Particularly facial expressions.) She wondered if Dro had even seen the kind of plant he was playing with before - it was a possibility, she didn't know much about Nalaya's climate, but it seemed a safe guess that it wasn't the same as Gylias'. (They had more mountains... did they not?)

She nodded and chuckled at Yasrena's halting reminiscence of Dro's escapade with the fire escape. "Haha, I can see it now," she said, savouring the mental image of little Dro doing expert parkour. When he settled on trying to make small figurines out of his food, she gave a wide smile as she ate her own portion. She couldn't compete with Yasrena for speed, in all likelihood, but she still had a tendency to wolf down her food quite fast.

Izana sympathised with Yasrena's concern for Dro playing with his food. It was a good thing that she was conscious about others, and she could concede the point on seeing the stains Dro left on the table covering. Nevertheless, they were only minor, and Dro was still a young child. She had no doubt that with such a good sister guiding him, he would turn out well. (Although that was still in the future. Far in the future.)

"It's alright, Yasrena," Izana said. "I doubt Dro is the first or last child to have been in this restaurant." She chuckled. "Yes, don't worry, after we're done we're going right to your apartment." She glanced at Dro and thought, I think that's as far as they're going with that dish...

Once they were all finished, she told the siblings to "wait here", and then took all of their plates together and carried them off to the staff. She also took the opportunity to pay the bill, by once again taking out her debit card and scanning it on a card scanner. She quietly apologised to the staff on behalf of the siblings and explained that they were newly arrived. Returning to the table, she gently took them by the hands, and once again led them out of the restaurant into the street.

Back on the street, Izana showed the way forward for the siblings, talking when she could with Yasrena as long as she wasn't busy trying to keep Dro out of trouble. They headed right, walking up the road for a few minutes, stopping at one point to wait for the traffic light to clear pedestrians to cross the street. "It would've been easier if we had a subway," she lightly remarked to Yasrena as they walked on. Passing a clothes store, Izana thought, They probably will need some new clothes...

At one point, she noticed a particular colleague passing by on the other side of the street. (The colleague wore the same uniform as Izana, although she opted for long trousers instead of Izana's skirt.) Their glances happened to meet at a moment where there were not many cars passing by, so they smiled and waved at each other before carrying on their way. "That was Malin," she said to Yasrena by way of qualification, "a colleague of mine." (They must have already passed by around six or seven police officers, either on their side or the other side of the street.)

Izana turned left into a narrower street, a gap between two double story shophouses, and led Yasrena and Dro into a quieter residential area, plotted out roughly in the shape of a rectangle. The limits of the rectangle were marked by five-story apartment blocks and terraced houses, with small gardens and trees placed before the pavement itself. A green area could be seen in the middle, but there was also a small maze of little side-streets, snaking around rows of residential buildings and the occasional small shop. It was an area that had its own charm - mostly deserted streets, greenery, curving paths and streets that made it feel like a place meant for human habitation - but also could easily get someone not from around lost in the little curlicues that made up its street map.

"This neighbourhood's named Nadhyv," Izana said, stopping for a moment. "It's where your new residence is." She punctuated this by pointing to the block to the southeast, close to the green area. "Come, let's get you in."

[Nalaya]

At the restaurant, Yasrena again felt that twinge in her stomach when Izana paid for the meal. She couldn’t really object, because she probably didn’t have enough money to cover their food, but it bothered her all the same. Part of it was raw pride and the rest was the Tenet of Reserve. She knew she would have to get over it, because the position they were in required the kindness of others. You’re being stupid, she muttered in her own head. It’s one meal, a little thing. Let it go. She’d taken the charity of others in the past, though they had virtually all been fellow ku’nal. Yasrena was calm and collected again by the time Izana returned, though she’d wadded up her napkin tightly before returning it to the surface of the table.

It was strange to have Izana holding her hand, but she didn’t say anything of it. She didn’t want to offend and it really wasn’t all that uncommon in her own world. Mak’ur were a bit standoffish with outsiders, but Yasrena was used to being close with her friends. How many times had Pella grabbed her to drag her into some kind of trouble? Surely countless times. Izana was at least friendly and seemed trustworthy enough, so it didn’t bother Yasrena intensely.

She paid attention to the clothing stores mostly because she knew she might be able to find a job at one, and if it was within walking distance of their residence, so much the better. Yasrena couldn't quite call it a home yet, but she knew that someday she might be able to think of Gylias that way. Right now, she was almost violently homesick. It would pass, of course, and she knew it. Gylias was just so different that it was a shock to the system. Even the smell of the new town was alien. Armavir had an ancient smell, old stone and dry air and dust. And garbage in the run down areas, of course, but the Shrjani Nshanneri was always kept relatively clean. The Mak'ur were fastidious, for all their faults.

The traffic lights interested Yasrena. It was far different than pedestrians simply weaving their way through the cars, made possibly mostly because Armavir’s broader streets were so congested that no one could really move with speed other than the occasional crazed taxi driver or were too narrow for cars to comfortably pass through. The squares were generally closed to vehicles, crammed to sardine-like levels of market stalls hawking everything from food to grey market electronics to construction materials. Armavir was always under construction, as the city repurposed old buildings far more than they constructed new ones. It was cheaper, for one. Urban renewal was very much the way of life in the Nava’ai Highlands, and really all of Nalaya.

"You have many vostikanut'yun," Yasrena observed. She cleared her throat, reminding herself of the appropriate word. "Or...police."

This place was beautiful. The narrow side streets with their confusing twists and turns made Yasrena feel more at home. It was much more of a garden city than Armavir, more akin to Sevan, but streets that made no sense were par for the course in her home city. It was one of the few places she’d ever heard of where streets occasionally intersected themselves, laid out as though drawn by a drunken bonobo some hundreds of years ago. The air being humid was also a strange sensation, but one she knew she would adjust to. It was like a visit to the seaside without the smell of salt spray. She was grateful she would be able to live somewhere so nice.

When they reached the apartment buildings, both she and Dro craned their necks as they inspected the area, looking upwards. It was tall, though they weren’t completely disarmed, as Armavir did have skyscrapers and some big buildings. Still, they had lived in a small, almost cramped two-story house on a narrow street. This was a different atmosphere as well. Hopefully a good one. “Nadhyv,” Yasrena repeated. She liked the way that sounded. <<This is where we live now, Dro.>>

Yasrena checked the rooftops thoroughly as well, just in case.

Meanwhile, Dro swung their joined hands, fidgeting fiercely. <<Let’s go!>> he chirped.

She couldn’t help smiling a little bit at her brother’s excitement. At least he didn’t seem afraid anymore, though she knew that could be deceptive. Even though he was little, Dro understood the brave face. She gave his hand a squeeze. <<Lead on, little man.>>

Dro immediately started walking quickly, virtually dragging his sister and Izana as well by extension. The problem was that he didn’t actually know where he was going, which made him laugh. He started leading them in a large circle, at least until Yasrena stopped him by scooping him up. <<Aww…>>

Yasrena laughed. “Maybe you should lead, Siruhi,” she said, looking over at Izana.

[Gylias]

"Yes," Izana said with a laugh, "we do." It was one of the first things people noticed about Gylias. (Well, apart from the nudity... the lack of advertising... the offbeat graffiti and colour schemes to make cities not boring...) And it was one of the first things Gylians would notice when visiting abroad - suddenly realising that they haven't seen a single police officer while walking down the street. In other contexts, the large number of police officers on the street would have seemed threatening. Suffocating. A show of force - a reminder of the state's power over you. Not here though. The police were a trusted insitution. People respected them; they were a reassuring presence. If you needed directions, help, you could ask one. And there were so many people would think twice, thrice... many times before they decided to try committing any crimes out in the open.

It wasn't the first time Izana had had that pointed out to her by someone from outside Gylias. However, she wasn't sure Yasrena was particularly interested in the details as seen from an inside perspective. (That and she wasn't sure she could express it entirely in simpler English.) "It keeps people safe," she commented. "They're trusted, and help people. If you ever need directions, ask them." Remembering Yasrena's nervous question about whether she was a milits’iayi, she wondered if the siblings had had previous bad experiences with the Nalayan police, and hoped that they would find the Gylian police worthy of their trust instead. (Which obviously wouldn't happen instantly, but gradually.)

Izana was happy to see Yasrena and Dro taking in their new neighbourhood, and gamely played along with Dro's brave attempts to locate a place he had never been to before (presumably doable if in the possession of psychic powers or a script one could read ahead in), sharing a laugh with the siblings about the confusion. "Certainly, follow me!", she said chirpily, giving the siblings a thumbs up. As she walked them to the right block, she quipped, "First time and you've already gotten lost, you'll be right at home! It's good we got that out of the way right away, no?"

Reaching the door to the right block, she reached into the left pocket of her jacket (she had too many pockets - two on the outside of her jacket, two more on the inside, two on her skirt - but it allowed her to carry things without burdening her hands), and pulled out one key ring, one of the two she would give to Yas and Dro. The ring had two keys, one for the entrance to the block and one for the entrance to their flat, and a small plastic key fob with a pattern on it dangling off the keychain. The block's entrance had a buzzer on the wall, and above it a small LED light. Izana held up the fob to the light, which scanned it; the door lock then opened with a sustained beep emitted from the buzzer, and Izana pulled the door and held it open, allowing the siblings to enter.

"It makes it easier to get in," she said, briefly holding up the key fob towards the siblings. "Don't need to go through the trouble of opening the door with the key, haha." She then gave Yasrena the keychain, and reached to get the other one as well, handing it to Dro. "I have one too, so you needn't worry about being at home to let me in," she said playfully, winking at the siblings.

Their apartment happened to be the first door on the left in the entrance to the corridor; as it was a five-story building, there wasn't an elevator installed - those were used for blocks with more than five stories. As she unlocked the door, Izana paused briefly, looked at the siblings to say, "Yasrena, Dro...", before opening the door and finishing, "...welcome home."

The open door led to a small square hall, with a clothes rack on the side. It provided easy access to the rooms, which were laid out rather methodically. Directly ahead was the kitchen: a floor of ceramic tiles, and a rather straightforward space (reminiscent of a Frankfurt kitchen) with the essentials - a countertop, sink, fridge, oven, microwave oven, several cupboards and cabinets, plus a table and three chairs, for eating. Flanking the kitchen in the corners were two bathrooms, both with a toilet, sink, and stall shower. On the left and right of the hall were Yasrena and Dro's rooms. Most of the interior doors of the flat, particularly for the bathrooms and siblings' rooms, were sliding glass doors - an architectural touch that had often been picked up from Kirisakians. Windows, a mix of sliding and casement (mostly two-pane), were on the walls of the rooms facing the street, in the kitchen, bathrooms, and siblings' rooms.

[Nalaya]

<<How does it work?>> Dro asked with wide eyes, studying the fob and the light. He looked down at his new set of keys and immediately tried to hold his fob up, though he was still fairly short even if he was tall for his age. Yasrena steered him into the apartment instead of letting him. She was well aware that he would unlock the door repeatedly if given the chance, maybe even until he broke it.

Yasrena wasn't certain exactly what she'd been expecting for their new place to live, but she could feel her throat suddenly tightening as they walked in. Dro dashed past her, as he was wont to do, though the sliding doors confused him enough that he slowed down a little. Most Nalayan houses had open interior frames or archways, sometimes with curtains pulled across, or more straightforward hinged doors. The boy's grubby hands left smudge marks on the glass, but there was nothing she could do about that at the moment. She set the bags down on the floor near the front door and walked forward, opening the door to the kitchen. It was so...nice.

Dro turned around when he heard a soft sound from his sister, his brows furrowing together. <<Yas, what's wrong?>>

She had covered her face with her hands, trying to stem the sudden flow of tears. She was exhausted and dirty and homesick and overwhelmed and so, so grateful that she had anything even remotely like this. She sank to a kneeling position on the ground, trying to take deep breaths so she didn't cry in front of Dro, but it was all turning into sobs. Her tired brain had kicked straight into overload.

Dro padded over and put his arms around his sister's shoulders. <<It's okay,>> he said solemnly, hugging her and patting her back. <<We're safe here.>>

Yasrena just nodded. She got it together after another minute, calming herself down with some proper deep breaths. When she was able to think, she was an expert at regulating her breathing. <<I know,>> she said as she hugged him back. Hugging Dro always felt like hugging a little bird or something, he was so fragile and energetic. Granted, he was a lot sturdier than he seemed to her, but he was still little. She nodded her head a little unsteadily and then let go of him, getting back up to her feet. She put a hand on Dro's head to stop him before he could run off and cause trouble. <<You need a bath, little man.>>

He made a face. <<I don't wanna!>>

<<Tough shit,>> she said firmly before looking up at Izana. There was something difficult to read in the Mak'ur girl's eyes and gratitude plainly written on her tattooed face. "Thank you so much, Siruhi. This...there aren't words." She took another deep breath. "Dro goes into shower before he puts...greasy paws on anything else." She fished a bar of soap out of her bag before turning her brother towards one of the bathrooms and marching him in. <<Come on, Dro. One way or another, you will be taking a bath. You can do it yourself like a big guy, or I can find a garden hose.>> She turned on the shower for him, though she almost wanted to just step in herself instead and steal it from him.

He stuck out his tongue at her before grabbing the bar of soap and jumping into the shower with all his clothes still on him. It made his sister groan, which made him giggle, but she wasn't going to complain. Judging by the color of the water running down the drain, it had been direly needed. Dro plopped down cross-legged in the shower and began the laborious chore of untying his shoes. Eventually he finished and stood up again, lathering up his entire body with his clothes still on. He warbled a little bit, trying to sing in the shower like his sister always did, though he was doing it without knowing any of the words to anything or what good pitch sounded like.

Yasrena went and pulled out their towel, shaking her head a little bit as she laughed. At some point she would need to wrangle those clothes off of him so she could wash them properly, particularly since she'd only managed to keep one clean set for each of them. Everything else in the bag was...not good. It was a miracle they didn't smell worse, it really was. She waited until Dro had finished and come padding out to ambush him with the towel before he could continue dripping water all over the main square hall. He squeaked in protest and squirmed when she dried him off, but he seemed to approve of her ruffling up his short hair. <<Now you have to!>> Dro said, pushing his sister towards the bathroom.

<<Where'd you put the soap?>> Yasrena said with amusement, grabbing her tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner. They'd come from some traveler who felt sympathetic, not that she'd had a chance to use them yet.

Dro waved his hand into the steamy bathroom, looking proud of himself. She stepped in and fished it away from the drain where it had been slowly dissolving itself. He'd of course left the shower running. There was a pool of water on the floor almost large enough for her to start looking for fish in it. How he managed to generate so much trouble, she would never understand. <<I've got this,>> he said smugly.

Yasrena rolled her eyes. <<Stay right here with Siruhi Réuney. By the door. Sing me the alphabet song,>> she said, positioning him right next to the door with his back against the door. There was a reason she was making the song request: she would know if anything happened to Dro or if he started to run off because he would stop singing. It was a little trick she'd learned from her mother, something to kind of ease a little bit of the crippling nerves at leaving Dro out of her sight with a stranger who wasn't ku'nal.

<<Will you sing it too?>> Dro asked.

It stabbed at her heart, but she shook her head. <<Just sing it, Dro. I'm going to be taking a shower.>>

<<But—>>

<<Dro!>> she snapped, losing her temper a little bit. She was tired and wanted her shower without having to talk at all about how she was doing. She grabbed her clean clothes and the towel.

He sighed dramatically, something that she knew she would have to look forward to so much more when he was a teenager, and nodded obediently as he tucked his now-clean hands into his soaked pockets. He hadn't been convinced yet to change. That was going to be another battle, mostly because these were now clean clothes to him, and he was wearing his favorite shirt. It had a dinosaur on it, which made it far superior to the other, non-dinosaur shirts that Yasrena had managed to scrounge together. Neither of them had been carrying clothes when they'd been caught outside of the Shrjani Nshanneri, so it was whatever people had smuggled into the Esperance International headquarters for them.

Once Yasrena was in the bathroom getting clean, Dro began singing the alphabet song in Nalayan and then in his ethnic language, two drastically different languages in sound, grammar, and alphabet. They weren't even written in the same script. He sang it with little concern given to correctness or accurate pitch in the high voice of a child, but with a boundless enthusiasm and an impressive volume, produced by more air than should have possibly fit in his body. He seemed very, very excited about each letter once he started to enjoy himself. While he was doing so, he started to spike his hair absentmindedly. Coming to the end of the song was no challenge—he just began again, this time ad-libbing the words that each letter was for. He made the mistake of improvising v is for vith at the same time his sister opened the door.

His older sister brandished the bar of soap threateningly. <<I don't want to hear that word until you're fifty, Dro, or I'll wash your mouth out with soap!>> she said with a scowl. Her mother had been very particular about appropriate language. Really, it was stupid to be so up-in-arms about it when their world had just gone completely and horribly wrong, but manners were important in their society. <<And not ever in front of Siruhi Réuney!>>

Dro's green eyes were huge. <<Sorry!>>

[Gylias]

Izana had been sticking to English in order to give Yasrena more opportunity to practice - that, and the slightly surprised reaction she and Dro had had when she first approached them with a greeting in Nalayan made her think they were more comfortable with her speaking English -, but she wouldn't deny Dro an explanation. "<That light is actually an electronic reader, Dro.>", she said, fumbling slightly for the word for "electronic". She held up the fob again to illustrate. "<It reads the pattern on the keychain. If it's the wrong pattern, it won't open the door.>"

Izana had hoped that Yasrena and Dro would like their new flat. (Dro's enthusiasm in the regard was encouraging.) Perhaps part of her forgot that they were refugees, but the sight of Yasrena being overwhelmed by the flat was startling. It was as if she froze - she could only look dumbfounded at Yasrena crying while Dro tried to comfort her. It was over quickly. I... didn't realise..., she thought.

"You're welcome, Yasrena," she managed to respond, "From all of us."

She felt an instinct to approach Yasrena and gently place her hand on her face, reassure her that this was actually happening; that she would be safe and looked after. She announced Dro's shower and marched her brother into the bathroom before she could do that, but she thought she should take a moment later when they were by themselves to ask her how she felt. She fidgeted on her feet slightly.

In the meantime, she was amused by their delightful battle of wills in the shower, and Dro's valiant efforts to sing despite lacking any talent for it. His enthusiasm was infectious, and he was so determined to try and yet inept at it, that it was charming. Izana found herself pondering the possibility that, by not managing to sing well, Dro was more entertaining than her own modest attempts at karaoke. (That, and he reminded her of Mandai. Warm her belly with a few strong drinks and that woman could do and think things that never would've occurred to Izana without intoxicants. It's not like she needed one, though - Mandai was her intoxicant of choice.)

Trying not to distract Dro from his singing, Izana lowered herself to the floor, sitting down with her legs crossed. She understood the Nalayan alphabet song, but she was totally lost for the other one. For all she could understand, Dro might as well have been making it up. Keeping her hands on her thighs, she raised her fingers and let them down against the legs, making a faint tapping noise only she could hear. With it, she tried to vaguely work out what rhythm there was to the songs. (If it had been trying to tap out their tempos, the metronome would probably have resigned and then filed a lawsuit for violation of the right to safe working conditions, as per Article 65 of the Constitution.)

Faintly noticing through the glass door that Yasrena had turned off the shower and was stepping out of it, Izana pushed herself up from the floor and got back to her normal standing position. It was good to have breaks from standing now and then. (And breaks from sitting now and then.) The last word she'd heard from Dro was "vith", but she had stopped paying close attention and now assumed that he was back to the Nalayan. She assumed that was his pronunciation of vit', the word for "gazelle". Yasrena's angry threat baffled her. "Yasrena, you hate gazelles?", she asked, with a confused facial expression. "... do you even have gazelles in Nalaya?", she added, thinking out loud. The way she had exploded over just a word was concerning.

[Nalaya]

Yasrena was taken aback by Izana’s question, but then she covered her brother’s ears even though he didn’t speak English and said, “It is not gazelle. In Mak’ur it is...it means ‘fuck’. Gazelle is narel in our language.”

Dro hugged his sister, squeezing tightly and sharing the water that had soaked into his clothes. Yasrena tried to pry him off, but to no avail. She was going to have to live with being damp, she supposed. Then, abruptly, he squirmed away and looked at her, giggling. <<I made a Dro print!>> he announced, pointing at his sister. There was indeed enough water left on him to leave a rough, if faint outline of his body on Yasrena.

She rolled her eyes and then threw the towel at him. <<Dry off,>> she said as she walked back over to her bag. She pulled everything out: the wadded clothes that needed a wash badly, her worn copy of the Linath, a dead cellphone with a charger, a hairbrush, a toothbrush with an accompanying tube of toothpaste that was mostly gone, a polished olivewood bowl, and a cedar box about three inches deep, eight inches long and six inches wide. She grabbed her hairbrush used it to quickly get rid of any tangles. Her hair wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be, a pleasant surprise. She felt like a human being again.

Yasrena opened the box carefully, flooding the room with a rich, spicy, bittersweet smell that overpowered even the cedar. She set the wooden box down and then ducked into the bathroom to fill the bowl. Immediately, Dro seemed to settle down, no longer scrubbing himself off with the towel. He padded over to the box and the book, green eyes thoughtful.

Dro looked up at Izana. <<Are you gonna pray too?>> he asked.

<<Og’elend don’t pray like we do, Dro,>> Yasrena said as she stepped back out into the main room. She knelt down facing towards Dyvynasshar with the bowl in front of her, splashing her face with water and then dunking her hands again. She shook the water off her hands, but didn’t dry them on the red cloth that she was unfolding from the box. She laid it out in front of her and then set a piece of damascus steel on it that was worked into the shape of a hand with three fingers, a thumb on either side, and an eye for a palm—a hamsa or as they were called in her faith, the rah’jhun. Theirs was a simple one, but one of her friends had made it for her—Shyntafay, who was one of the very few arrend metalworkers left in the world. She put a small incense holder on the cloth to the right of the symbol and took out a stick of incense, the source of the smell. Fortunately, she’d had a lot of it on her when she was out in the city—she’d been sent across town to buy some just before everything started.

<<But—>>

<<Don’t pester Siruhi Réuney.>>

The little boy nodded reluctantly, though he did watch the police officer for a minute with very worried eyes before kneeling down at his sister’s side and copying her with the water. Yasrena struck a match and touched it to the incense. She immediately blew out the flame once the first curl started to rise, ensuring that the stick would burn very slowly and only give off a little of its perfumed smoke. They hadn’t had a chance to pray properly since the day before everything went wrong. Even in the EI building, it hadn’t been safe enough.

Yasrena pressed her palms together and then touched her hands to her forehead as she started to say the invocation, in her musical, sometimes almost sibilant native tongue. Normally it was sung, but that wasn’t obligatory and she didn’t feel like she had the strength for it. Dro only needed to know the responses, which was easier for him and his attention span. He mostly just copied her, bowing his head and then pressing his forehead to the floor at the appropriate times. It was superficially similar to the Islamic salat, but the invocations were quite different: appeals to the spirits for guidance, the calling in of Creation, the reminders of the halisstraden—the mysteries—and finally, the verses of resolve.

It took ten or fifteen minutes for a full ortelassa, maybe a few minutes less when it was said instead of sung.

Dro was a little disappointed despite himself when she snuffed out the incense stick completely and then began to put everything away. He loved hearing his sister sing. She could take verses and make them sound every bit as ethereal and unique as they were. He scrambled up to his feet and looked back at Izana, trying to gauge her expression a moment.

“Sorry,” Yasrena said to Izana once she was done packing everything back into that wooden box. “I just...it was a long time since last. If we will live here...well, without the Yath…” She hesitated. She’d never lived anywhere that wasn’t blessed by the Yath every new year. She knew the prayers, but she couldn’t perform the ritual without being Yath herself. It had just needed some kind of spiritual presence to mark that this would be their new apartment, and a full ortelassa was the best she could do. “...it is good now.”

Dro perked up. <<There are Yath here?>> he asked hopefully, picking it out as a word he recognized. He felt safe near Yath, the embodiments of the Divine’s protection of the faithful.

Yasrena shook her head. <<No, no Yath. Gylias doesn’t have any.>>

The little boy looked baffled. <<So who talks to the spirits? Who protects the faithful? What happens if somebody has a baby or gets married or dies?>>

<<They’re all og’elend. They do things differently,>> Yasrena tried to explain. She barely understood it herself. Religion was the backbone of Mak’ur society, the glue that kept them unified. Their faith was practically written into their genetic code. The idea of not having their religion wasn’t horrifying—it was inconceivable. That was why even Yasrena understood the war. Her people were fighting to avoid extinction, obliteration. <<Don’t worry about it, Dro.>>

His furrowed brow told her that he’d be thinking about it for a while and probably pestering her with more questions later. Finally, he asked, <<Will you talk to the spirits for us, Yas?>>

She sighed. <<I’ll do my best.>> She looked back at Izana. “Can you think of...place for looking after job?”

Yasrena felt better now. Praying always made her feel grounded and safe, no matter how terrible the world was. It couldn't shield her from a bullet, but it could take away fear for a little bit and in some ways that was more impressive than what a bulletproof vest could do.

[Gylias]

Izana was still taken aback by the answer. "Oh, just fuck?", she said, nonplussed. "That's it?" She expected something stronger, more... horrible? But 'fuck' wasn't even something she would bat an eyelash at. It seemed a bit like being angry at the word "phlegm" - at least that one phonetically sounded more off-putting. (The fact that it medically rarely meant something good only added to it.) Well, at least now I know how to say 'gazelle' in Mak'ur, she thought. Presumably there are gazelles in Nalaya then, otherwise they wouldn't have a name for it, right? She then joked, "Thanks Yasrena, now I know how to say gazelle!"

Sniffing after Yasrena opened her bag, Izana found the scent to be intriguingly spicy. She hadn't really experienced scents like that outside occasionally eating spicy food. Having it in the background of a flat was certainly a novelty - most of the people she knew preferred to put some kind of light perfumey scent in their flats instead. Or cars. Hey, they had to hide the smell of a car left in the sun without a windshield cover somehow.

She only had the time to quickly blurt out "<No, I haven't->" in response to Dro before Yasrena reminded him that she was... one of the words she used that certainly meant "not someone like us". She hesitated, wishing to reassure Dro she didn't mind her questions, but not having the time to say anything before he joined his sister in the ritual. She was starting to feel miffed by Yasrena's propensity to reflexively tell Dro not to ask her anything. She didn't feel pestered - she felt like Yasrena somehow didn't trust her, or didn't want Dro to find out anything from her. (As a police officer, she already helped people with answers. The idea of overhearing someone say she shouldn't be asked things was almost like saying she wasn't worth anything as a police officer.)

Izana calmly leaned against one of the walls and did not interfere with the siblings' ritual. The language was completely incomprehensible to her, but it sounded beautiful, in its own way. It had some good euphonious words. She didn't know much about prayers... certainly, a Concordian could pray by kneeling on the floor, but that wasn't obligatory. One could just stand up, for instance on a bridge, and just think one's prayer, and that was it. One didn't need glades, shrines, or special rooms or corners. They still existed, but as long as one could think one's prayer, that was it. Izana was a passive Concordian, in practice. She didn't really think the spirit world existed, but she didn't mind the stories; she still visited her shrine, casually invoked the spirits in thought and conversation, and sometimes left gifts, or made or bought amulets, before important occasions. She saw it as community-building, not a worldview to subscribe to.

She chuckled. "Why are you apologising, Yasrena?", she asked. "There's nothing to apologise for. The Yath, they are like spirits, correct?"

She couldn't understand the siblings' conversation, but judging from their body language and tone of voice, she had the melancholic feeling that once again, Yasrena had told Dro not to ask so much. She couldn't tell if it was about herself or not, but it reminded her about Yasrena cutting Dro off before she could answer about whether she would pray too. She sighed and looked away for a moment.

"Yes," she answered to Yasrena's question. "You said a place where they needed someone who can sew, right? We passed a clothes store on the way here. We'll go there and see if they have anything. Even if they don't," she gestured towards Yasrena's backpack, "I have a feeling you would need some new clothes regardless."

"And Yasrena..." She paused with her mouth open for about five seconds, before closing it. Gylians were known for their friendliness, yes, but they were also honest. Izana thought about how to say what she wanted to say without hurting Yasrena's feelings, but felt that she had to bring it in the open and have it hopefully cleared up quickly. She looked at Yasrena with a melancholic expression. "Yasrena. I want to ask you, please, stop telling off your sibling for asking me things. I don't feel pestered. I'm happy to answer questions. It is no problem at all." She lightly held out her palm in Dro's direction. "You shouldn't discourage Dro's curiosity."

[Nalaya]

Yasrena shook her head, eyes seemingly centuries old. “Not safe,” she said in answer to Izana’s polite rebuke. The idea that she was stifling Dro’s curiosity stung, but she knew it was true. She just had, to her mind, a good reason.

What could she say to this woman? There were plenty of words boiling in her throat amongst the broken glass and fire of the Shrjani Nshanneri. She knew what the world was like, what it would gleefully do in an instant. Friends, neighbors, people that she had known her whole life, that she had trusted had turned on them at the click of a detonator. She didn’t even know Izana. If people who had been safe for her whole life could do that to her, how much easier would it be for a stranger? Dro didn’t understand, because he was little, and so the burden fell on her. It was one thing to make little friends and pester them with questions—children were sometimes cruel, but jeers and tears faded—but adults…adults could kill.

Yasrena knew she wasn’t endearing herself to Izana with that two word answer, but she wasn’t certain she could elaborate without just dissolving into tears again, and she didn’t want Dro to see her cry. Maybe it was a passion and should have been shown, but she was ashamed of how weak and tired she felt. It wasn’t Izana’s fault, of course, and Yasrena knew that. But the police officer was part of the same vast, nebulous Other that had tried to destroy their world along with everything and everyone in it. That made even someone as safe-seeming as Izana terrifying.

She hesitated for a moment, not sure whether or not she really wanted to leave her bag. What if they had to run again? Yasrena took a deep breath. “Sorry, Siruhi,” she said quietly, her jade eyes still not meeting Izana’s. Mak’ur associated direct eye contact with strong emotions, usually either intimacy or anger. They would glance and watch through eyelashes, but seldom did they match a stare for a stare unless they felt threatened...the Yath being an exception to that.

Dro tugged on her sleeve. <<What is…>> He frowned and shaped the word carefully. “...spirit?”

“Ze’zhuanth,” Yasrena said, supplying him with the Mak’ur word.

<<Oh!>> He brightened up. <<They have jungle here! Do they have dinosaur spirits too? Like dragons! Can I still have a pet dragon?>>

Yasrena ruffled his hair and smiled. <<He won’t fit in the door.>>

Dro gave her a haughty look. <<They start little.>>

<<You’re a twerp,>> Yasrena said, tapping the end of his nose with a finger. <<Best behavior when we go to the store, or no pet for you.>>

The noise of dismay her brother made was universal. <<But I wanna dra—>>

<<So be good,>> Yasrena said as she repacked her bag. She slung it over her shoulder. Dro could probably get away with leaving his here, but hers had that holy symbol, copy of the Linath, and incense in it. That was a collection too precious to lose if they needed to run. On a rational level, she understood that they were safe and that Gylias was nothing like Nalaya. Her emotions seldom paid much heed to what went on in her head, however. Her instincts had gotten them out of Nalaya, so she was ill-inclined to abandon them.

Dro mumbled something else about dragons. He left his own bag because it slowed him down, grabbing Yasrena’s hand. He seemed to have recovered from her snap at him without any bruised feelings. <<Where are we going?>>

<<That clothing store,>> Yasrena said absently, her thoughts still back in Armavir.

The distant look on her face was familiar to Dro, though it was a recent acquisition. He knew it wasn’t a good thing, even if it seemed innocuous. So he did what he did best. The little boy immediately launched himself forward, tugging Yasrena with him at a pace much faster than she’d anticipated. When he heard her yelp his name as she barely caught herself, he grinned. He knew the look would be gone now. <<Let’s go!>> he chirped, continuing to tug.

Yasrena rolled her eyes, but let Dro tow her out through the door.

<<Siruhi, are you coming?>> Dro asked as he looked back at Izana.

[Gylias]

Now you've gone and done it, Izana, Izana mentally scolded herself. Exactly what she wasn't supposed to do, she had done without realising. She felt ashamed, seeing Yasrena avert her gaze from hers. She had previously taken it to mean that she was shy, but now she felt as if she had upset her. "Yasrena," she said, her facial expression regretful, "Yasrena, I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have said that. I apologise." Please don't be upset at me, she wanted to add.

"It's...", she hesitated, resisting an urge to stare at the floor, "ah..." She sighed, looking at Yasrena with apologetic eyes. "I'm sorry, Yasrena." She thought about reaching out with her hand, but did not do so, worrying that it would only make things worse. Gylians as a rule had much closer levels of physical intimacy than other nations - even strangers, embraces and shoulder pats and handshakes were casual, useful for both closeness and comforting someone. The idea of having to do it with just words seemed more... tricky. Having to suddenly do without something done without much thought could make one realise how much that was taken for granted.

Izana kept quiet as Yasrena and Dro talked amongst themselves, until she heard Dro's question. She chuckled, slightly. "<Do you want me to?>", she asked in Nalayan. "<I'd probably just upset your sibling again.>" She was trying to brush it off so they could overcome the awkward moment and get back to getting to know each other. "<Yes, of course I am!>", she joked as she walked out the apartment, closing the door behind her, and got started on leading the siblings back to the clothes store.

She was able to keep up with them, in fact to an extent the fact that she knew the way back best slowed them down somewhat since they would have to follow her direction. "Yasrena, would you like me to tell Dro how spirits work here?", she offered lightheartedly. We do have a bit of a walk, after all...

[Nalaya]

"It is fine," Yasrena said with a wave of her hand. She hesitated for a moment, trying to think of English words for a moment before giving up. <<My people say that each person has their own j'aarrin. It is like a world, a lens, a facet of Creation that is unique to them and their experiences. Yours is just different from mine, which is different from Dro's, and thus for all people. There is nothing wrong with it. Each person is true to what they know.>>

<<Yeah, and I bug her all the time!>> Dro added cheerfully. <<She keeps me!>>

<<You are a little terror,>> Yasrena agreed. She was amused by his answering grin and the way he puffed his chest out a little with pride.

Once they got out the door, the conversation seemed to become a little less strained, which Yasrena was grateful for. She preferred her silences comfortable. She imagined that for a while, she and Izana would be like new dance partners, learning how not to tread on each other's toes. Would that all people could have the grace of children, Yasrena mused as she watched Dro start scampering around them in restless patterns. Her brother was clearly contemplating scaling something.

<<Dro, do you want to know about Gyli spirits?>> Yasrena asked.

Dro perked up. <<Yeah! Is Lilbh'iahin here? Ap'zen? Khalith?>>

Yasrena rolled her eyes when she realized he was probably going to go through every spirit whose name he knew. She poked him in the ribs as he came to hover near her side, earning a giggle and a wriggle. <<Those are our spirits, wael. They go anywhere that the faithful are. I would wager they are here too. Spirits have many names. But you wanted to hear about Gyli spirits, so let Siruhi Réuney talk.>>

<<Okay,>> Dro said, looking suitably focused...at least for the moment. In other nations, he might have been called ADHD, but for the most part, Yasrena felt that he just needed to run around and burn the energy off so he could sit and focus. Fortunately, most Nalayan teachers saw it the same way and had little crazy breaks where the kids could run around as hard and fast as they could for five minutes. It seemed to work well. Dro was a particularly rambunctious child, though.

Whether Izana knew it or not, she was going to have her work cut out for her corralling Dro. He was on good behavior right now. Yasrena knew she would be one step from tearing her own hair out when that ended.

She kept her pace even with Izana's, but she could only barely keep it leisurely and her eyes constantly roved, looking for danger. Gylias didn't seem as built up or densely populated as Armavir, at least in this area, which was good and bad. It was harder to get lost in a crowd here, as there weren't really crowds that could compete with Armavir's, but there were fewer rooftops to worry about. Besides, crowds were dangerous, if you got caught up in the wrong one.

She still felt people's eyes on her tattooed face, which made anxiety bubble up in the pit of her stomach. Pride kept it tamped down. She knew it was dangerous, maybe even lethal, but she would never cover the marks on her face again. That she'd had to for as selfish a reason as survival was a mark of shame in her own mind, something she felt guilt gnaw away at her for. She was not meant to hide who she was from the eyes of the spirits, animals, men, or the great mystery that was Creation. Hiding Dro she didn't feel guilty for. He was too young to have his life cut short.

The tattoo on the inside of Yasrena's wrist itched, the little prayer for peace reminding her of its presence.

<<Do the spirits here talk?>> Dro was asking Izana. <<You don't have any Yath. Who speaks their language? Are they big spirits? Old spirits? We had one that lived in our house. It was called Mue'hal. I fed it crumbs! Every ku'nal house has one, a spirit of the hearth. Do you have a spirit in your house, Siruhi? It would be very lonely without one.>>

Yasrena gave his shoulder a pointed squeeze. <<Easy, motor-mouth. Let her get a word in.>>

[Gylias]

Izana felt relieved that the conversation had come back into smoother waters after that short brush with stormy ones. We still have to learn how to be around each other, she reminded herself. This - chatting happily with Yasrena and Dro, being their unofficial consultant on Gylian spirituality and beliefs - was a good start. (Or, if it was an album, it would have also been an alright start. She never could remember how that was spelled...) She nodded in response to Yasrena's remark, finding it reassuring. "<So, that is to say we each have a different worldview?>", she said, staying with Nalayan since the siblings were also doing so.

She looked happily on as the siblings lightheartedly teased each other, as good siblings do. Chuckling, she finger-counted Dro's questions before Yasrena reminded him he'd have to listen for the answers. She then held up her full palm toward Dro. "<Five whole questions already! That's good, Dro, your thirst for knowledge is limitless!>", she said, slipping into the spiritedly maternal cadence of Rin Tōsaka for the last part. It was a reference that Yas and Dro would be unlikely to recognise, but it came to her as a natural association. Gylian history was not a history of Great Men, but a history of the people; still, a few people had been able to have a great impact on the paths it took at particular junctures. Many of them were unsurprisingly concentrated at independence. Izana took it as a fact that children should be encouraged in their curiosity - considering it a healthy trait was on par with considering the ocean wet. If one didn't want to be deluged by questions that needed answering, why would one want to have children?

Izana gently brought herself and the siblings closer together as they entered the broader street again. She used her right index finger to hold her index finger, indicating she would begin by answering the first question. "<So, do the spirits here talk? Yes, they do!>", she said. "<A spirit is the conscience of a person who has died, which has passed on into the spirit world. They appear to each person differently, since as humans, we cannot know their true nature and appearance. They can be big, or small... it quite depends on which person is perceiving or contacting them.>" She kept adding more fingers to the count as she answered. "<Old, yes, many of them are old. Some are as old as the world. Others are older than time itself, but it's been so long that they've forgotten more than we could ever know!>" She paused to laugh, before resuming. "<They speak our languages, since they were humans in the material world before becoming spirits. They are not quite like your Yath - our spirits exist entirely in the spirit world, so there is a limit to how much us,>" she traced a semicircle with her hand around the street, "<in the material world, can interact with them.>"

She glanced towards Yasrena and switched to English to add, "I hope I'm not wrong, Yasrena, but I take it the Yath are more like clerics?"

She then smiled and gave Dro a thumbs up. "<That's lovely, Dro. I hope it appreciated the crumbs.>" She then cleared her throat. "<My house? Not that I know of. It can have one, since everything has a spiritual essence, but I suppose I just haven't met them yet!>" She giggled. "<I do have a small room where I leave gifts. Spirits love being offered gifts. I mostly speak with Esala.>"

She took a moment to catch her breath and clear her throat again - she had been talking so long without anything to drink that she feared she would have a sore throat by the end. That was almost a given, as she anticipated she would then have to talk about the shrines and the spirits. (It was Dro's turn to get a word in - undoubtedly he was just leaping at the chance.) A thought passed by about whether it might be awkward to discuss Esala, the spirit of defense, with refugees.

In the meantime, the three had reached the clothes store and entered it. Gylian clothes stores had a few quirks that separated them from what one would normally assume a clothes store looked like - in fact, they would have resembled a charity store. No mannequins were used; what was on display in the window was just hung on a vertical stand with coat hangers. Within the store, the various items on sale were hung by coat hangers on clothes racks. They were loosely organised, and there was a great panoply of things on sale. (All of them seemed to be one-of-a-kind, furthering the resemblance to a charity store. Gylians didn't really do mass-produced items that all looked the same.) Behind the counter, one could see the entrance to a room, where all the customising equipment and machines were located. (It was thus possible to customise something a customer bought to their requests on the spot.) Attending the counter was a young, darker-skinned girl, hunched slightly over the counter with a pen in hand concentrating on a notepad. She wore large glasses, a flowery shirt with a mauve bow, and long black trousers with sneakers. When she heard the bell ring to signal that the door was opened, she pushed her glasses up her nose by their hinges and greeted them, "Hello! How may I help you?"

Izana gestured towards the siblings, smiling. "We're here to purchase some clothes," she said. "Sorry, and your name was...?"

"Oh, it's Nelly," the girl at the counter replied. "Anything you need help with?"

[Nalaya]

Dro seemed both intrigued and confused by the answers Izana was giving him. <<You don't go to Creation when you die? You all turn into gulen?>> he said, looking at her quizzically. He looked over at his sister. <<I don't wanna be a gul!>>

Yasrena sighed. <<Okay, one, nobody is dying here,>> she said firmly. <<Two, you'll just have to cross the river, Dro.>>

That seemed to mollify him. Dro looked curiously at Izana again. <<So I could just talk to them? Even the really old ones? How do you talk to Ssinssrigg? Or Kor'inth? Or Lilbh'iahin? Or Roesor? They came before words. They just...>> He struggled for a word that could encapsulate some of the oldest of the Ze'zhuanth. It was a concept he didn't fully understand yet, not that anyone really did except for maybe the Quarval-sharess. The spirits were closer to Creation, so they were more mysterious too. <<...are.>>

"Ssinssrigg is love, in all its forms at once," Yasrena translated. "Kor'inth is rage. Lilbh'iahin is joy. Roesor is sorrow. The oldest of the old are just...pure emotion, the most...true form of feeling. They are like gemstones with...many, many facets. Later came the spirits of primal nature, later than that came the guardian spirits. In our traditions, they speak in...emotions, sensations, experiences, and dreams. The Yath are half-spirits...holding for the l'thiin, the spirits of beasts. Then the Quarval-sharess is the voice of Creation, of divine, bridge between worlds. The Yath can talk to them...better, because their own passions are...not clouded. They feel deeply, easily, and that sensitiveness means spirits have an easier time talking to them. Less is lost in translation."

Dro waited for his sister to finish explaining before speaking, an admirable show of restraint for him. <<You don't have a hearth spirit?>> he said, looking shocked. <<What happened to Mue'nal?>> He squared his jaw. <<We'll show it where you live and then you can have a hearth spirit to protect your house and keep the bad wishes out. Hayr said you could call them in with crumbs!>>

Yasrena groaned. <<And ants, wael. You can call in ants.>>

<<So maybe Mue'nal decided to look like ants.>> Dro shrugged. <<I'm not Mue'nal. I don't get to pick.>> He turned back to Izana. <<Just don't forget to feed the hearth spirit, Siruhi. They get into trouble when they're hungry. They hide socks and keys and knock things over and play tricks on people.>>

Inside the clothing store, Dro immediately started scampering around, studying various outfits and crawling under displays wherever he could. <<No climbing!>> Yasrena called after him when she saw him start to eye the shelves. <<You promised!>>

<<Yeah!>> Dro called back absently, clearly focused on what trouble he could get into.

She sighed. In a few minutes, she could go look for him and make certain he wasn't damaging anything. Now and then she heard a little boy giggle and the rustling of fabric as he climbed under the racks. Yasrena stopped and examined some of the clothes on display, feeling for quality and style of fabric before looking at the stitching curiously. Some of it looked at least superficially different from what she'd learned. Granted, she was far from a master yet. Then as they approached the counter, Yasrena craned her neck to glance back at their work room. She filed that away for future reference. She smiled at the young woman behind the counter, who was likely at least a few years older than Yasrena was, trying not to feel self-conscious.

The mention of buying something made her nervous, mostly because she still was working out how the hell Gylian money worked. The numbers, symbols, and denominations were all different from what she was used to. The bills all looked completely different. "I..." Yasrena caught herself before she could stammer. She needed to buy herself some time to think about what the hell she wanted. "I like your shirt." She tried to put her hands in her back pockets, but one of them had been ripped out from the run from Armavir. Probably time to get a new pair, she acknowledged. She looked at Izana, staying calm by focusing on her own breathing. She had good breath control. She didn't need to panic. Confusion was fine, natural, and temporary. "I...do not know what to get."

And quietly, in the back of her mind, a little voice was saying, Five nshel says you get asked to leave because Dro won't stop climbing and knocking things over. It had happened before. Not the best first impression she could probably make.

[Gylias]

Izana nodded her head. "<Yes, you can talk to them.>", she said. "<They manifest in a different way to everyone, so they would know your language. Although a few of them prefer a certain appearance, judging by how they're represented...>"

She listened to Dro and Yasrena's explanations with interest. She didn't know much about the Mak'ur religion. (Kind of an odd oversight for someone who was assigned to Mak'ur refugees, but in fact she had been assigned to just Nalayan refugees, since they were from Nalaya.) I suppose they need more intermediaries than us, she thought. It sounded like one of those religions where one couldn't just directly have a chat with the deities in question. To a Nalayan, the Gylian spirits probably sounded oddly lackadaisical. (To a Gylian, the Mak'ur spirits probably sounded needlessly esoteric.) Being more obscure and secretive about knowledge was one of the... sticking points between Concordians and other religions. (Particularly religions that were really territorial about their own deities.)

"<Well, I can't talk to Sssinssrigg,>" she joked with Dro, stumbling over the pronunciation, "<because they's your spirit, not ours...>" Even in foreign languages, Izana still made sure to use gender-neutral third person pronouns. And if those were unavailable, she would just batter through the language and drag a poor victimised third person plural into third person singular sentences. (The overall effect probably sounded odd to the siblings' ears.) Then she listened to Yasrena's explanation of how the Mak'ur spirits... worked? Well, it's not like they found a job ad in the newspaper, went down for an interview, and then signed a contract to be spirits, did they? (They certainly didn't get paid...)

"<You could get me a hearth spirit?>", Izana asked Dro, humouring the lad. It was a tempting offer. She took out her phone and announced, "<Will schedule a run to get some bread crumbs then!>"

Before they entered the store, she turned towards Izana and said, "Thank you, Yasrena, that really helped. I wouldn't have gotten most of that, haha, but that is all very interesting. I'd love to hear more, assuming we don't have to stop your sibling from climbing something again..." Hearing Yasrena then remind her brother not to climb things, she blinked, and stifled a laugh with her hand. Looking at Dro near a display of socks, she added, "Dro is definitely practicing to be a hungry hearth spirit." She then quietly followed him at one point, leaving Yasrena to speak with Nelly.

"Aw, thank you!", Nelly said. She pointed towards it and added, "It's my favourite flower." Hearing that Yasrena did not know what to get, she looked up and down her twice, contemplating too deeply to notice Izana trying to keep up with Dro. "I think I might have an idea. Would you like to try it?", she said.

[Nalaya]

<<Oh, anyone can talk to Ssinssrigg. It's everybody's, not ours,>> Dro called cheerfully to Izana from his hiding place among the racks of clothes. <<It just doesn't always talk back how you hear. Spirits aren't clouded. Most people are. Clouds get in the way.>>

Dro went quiet then, busy squirming through racks and starting to scale a set of shelves with a squirrel's ease and a definite determination. He could be heard by the sounds of things being knocked off racks and shelves. Eventually, as he dangled off the shelf, he started to giggle. It creaked a little precariously, but Yasrena wasn't there to scold him or catch the shelf if it started to fall. <<Siruhi, look! I'm up high!>> he said with delight.

Over at the counter, Yasrena had to force herself to ignore her brother's chirp. She had to trust that Izana could handle whatever it was that was going on with him. "I'm open to...help, Siruhi," the Mak'ur girl said. "Whatever you would tell." She knew she needed to ask if they needed another hand, but she wasn't expecting to be able to do that right away. She was nervous about someone just suggesting her clothing without knowing her or anything about her, but she appreciated someone trying to be kind. There was also the price tag element, but she hoped she could politely decline if it was too much without giving them that reason. The wad of bills in her pocket felt particularly light at the moment.

She did need a new pair of pants, though. These were wearing thin at the knees. She didn't feel quite safe or confident enough for anything particularly daring, not like she'd been at home.

For her people, clothing was a statement of security and confidence, with those who felt more of those two preferring less clothing. Yath sometimes looked barely dressed, preferring to show off their tattoos and demonstrate their power. Yasrena had walked the middle of the road, mostly because she'd been extremely confident in her little section of Armavir. That had faltered a bit when she switched to a school outside of the Shrjani Nshanneri, but only a little. She'd maintained her pride in her heritage there and a certain stubbornness of expression, but had been feeling a little less secure despite a decent level of popularity. When tensions rose, that had shifted. Once she felt like there was a target painted on her back, she'd become much more conservative in her dress, sticking to long pants and long sleeves.

As she spoke with Nelly, she rubbed the thumb of her other hand over the healing tattoo on her wrist. It ached a little, but it was still calming. Normally her self-soothing was running her hands through her hair, but this worked too. She was keeping her breathing steady and even with the exercises she'd learned long ago, which kept her pulse controlled too.