WIPpet Wednesday – Tail Feathers

Ay’teantam ru! (Welcome!)

Moving right along. This is the last long one for a bit, pretty sure. Hugs and puppies to K.L. Schwengel for hosting. Rules are below.

Math = 2 + 9 = 11 paragraphs for the 29th.

Character descriptions:

Arvid 5’6″, dark copper skin, long brown hair, brown eyes, athletic build.

Taiamuk 6’3″, long red hair, gray eyes, a multitude of freckles, numerous scars, muscles a la Jackie Chan. Notable scars include three stab wounds on his right side and a long, horizontal gash across his chest. Owns one piece of clothing: trousers.

Necessary Context:

• Happens a couple hours after the last excerpt.
• Arvid’s attempts to sleep without cuddling the night before almost killed them for reals.
• Arvid despises Tai.
• Tai is speaking slowly enough for Arvid to discern words. I figure most people skip over the “foreign” languages in high fantasy books, hence the yellow font, but I got tired of saying things like, “he said something,” or, “she ignored his gibberish,” so I developed a language. Besides, I needed to know what he was saying in order to write him well.

He stood to accept [the cup of tea she offered] and took one sip without taking his eyes from hers. He started to circle her, his gaze sweeping her. He seemed to be considering her rather than exploring with his imagination, but she looked at the floor while he scrutinized nonetheless.

“Ay’teh’p gisheh’p ud nay’p uv tehv. Ay’teh gisheh’p ud peavgay’p uv muk. Tash gateneam ish’the gikhugev mushik a laminehikisheh chav. Ay’azaif ru loof zehtvuh, tash ru’mehsh’p ay chav.” He stopped in front of her.

She kept her eyes down. The time for sleep approached and with each heartbeat Arvid felt the awkwardness of the situation growing and her cheeks warming. She considered trying to sleep alone again, but she knew doing so increased the chances of spending another terrible night and sleeping late, wrapped in his arms despite her efforts to stay out of them, to make up for it.

“Ayrvid, ru’nut ush ay.” the man said, his tone that of one accustomed to being obeyed.

She wanted to smack him for speaking to her like that and let it show in her sneer when she looked at him. Wherever he came from and whatever position he held there, here they stood as equals, as two people who needed each other to survive and nothing else.

He spread his lips in a brilliant smile, pointed a foot in front of him, held both arms out, and bowed with an effeminate flourish. “Nirpeh may Ayrvid, ay’tith idshoopuv ayvean.”

Arvid’s sneer turned into an expression of complete bewilderment. She understood he meant to salute her, but what a salute! He reminded her of a male Jewelbottomed Dipper bending over to display its bright purple and green tail feathers for a bevy of females.

When he rose, smiling, he held his hand out in front of him, palm sideways. “Ay’zeh Gadev Taiamuk ud ay’zeh hugeh yeafeh vikiv tasheayik loof ru ay’tud.”

She stared at him, wondering what he wanted. His eyes flicked to her hand, but she held nothing to give him.

He blew out a breath, transferred the hand to his head to scratch and put his other hand on his hip. “Doo siv’tiktayd.”

Assuming him finished with his salute, and unwilling to return any salute to him, she sipped some of the tea out of the pot and washed up the things. That accomplished, she added enough logs to the fire to last the night and sat on the bedroll to stare at it, both dreading the moment when they settled down together and looking forward to falling asleep and shutting out the man’s presence for a few hours.

Not that you wanted to know, but it turns out “tail feathers” is not an innocent search term. Just FYI.

To join WIPpet Wednesday…

1. Post a snippet of your WIP that relates to the date
2. Thank K.L. Schwengel
3. Link up here
4. Enjoy good writing