Ymiden 35th 720AV
Verbena was not enjoying Storm’s Edge. The stone walls encircled a noisy crowd of merchants, knights, and healers and the only colours were found on sigils and flags. The Tunawa escaped the confines of the fortress to the Mistral Wood given any opportunity. As it was, Knives and Verbena’s food wagon had been popular and Verbena was harvesting vegetables and herbs from her mobile greenhouse faster than she could grow them. It gave her the perfect opportunity to escape Storm’s Edge, searching for seedlings and wild herbs.
So far, Ymiden had been warm and mild, but storm clouds had been brewing and the farmer’s whispers were that typical Ymiden storms were imminent. Worried there would be few mild days left for foraging Verbena was making the most of the beautiful weather. She’d had Knives collar the Dollop that morning and was watching the two stuff their faces with breakfast. They were always especially ravenous on mornings they were collared, as if anticipating a long day’s work. Dollop had two pails, filled with dirt, ropes and stones, hanging from the hames.
Between the hames hung a pulley with a rope threaded through it that reached to the horses hooves. Tying one end around her waist the Tunawa grabbed the other rope and began to slowly pull herself up the horse’s steep side. She felt herself lift off the ground and soon she was whizzing upwards past a dun coloured hock, rubbed against a shoulder and up over the withers. Untying herself at the summit, the horse’s withers, she looped both ropes to the hames.
She grinned to herself as she gazed about the bustling center of Storm’s Edge. More than once she had set off atop Dollop’s neck only to have someone grab the mare thinking it had freed itself. Each time she reveled in the open shock and awe on their face. She had gathered, by their sheer absence and people’s reactions, that Tunawa were not as common here as in Desnind and to see one ride such a large creature even more surprising. It made sense, since most of the Tunawa mounts in Desnind were smaller creatures – and likely where the Rharnians got their Tunawa legends. Desnind was a different city; a city of trees and nature where a squirrel or a toad could move about freely in a familiar environment. Here in Rharne, there were no trees for a squirrel to ricochet up and too many people for their nervous energy and no swamps or bogs for a toad to mud bathe in and too many thoughtless feet to navigate. The domesticated horse however had both the temperament and size to move about Rharne unmolested or incapacitated. Not to mention the strength, and motivation, to carry my plants Verena added to herself as she glanced up at the sleeping Peacock atop her wagon.
Verbena gulped as she gazed along the mane she’d have to tightrope walk. But a toad or a squirrel would be much easier to mount, she lamented. To walk along a thin still branch, even if it wafted slightly in the breeze, was nothing compared to a mane shake. Lowering herself on her hands and knees she was glad for the broad thick neck of the Fjord breed. Though it hadn’t been planned and she’d cursed this difficult walk all the way from Rharne to Storm’s Edge, she was grateful for the mare’s stout size once she’d seen the many long slender necks of the knights horses.
She gripped mane strands in her fists and kneeled on the broad neck slowly working her way up towards the horse’s ears. Each grip and tug drawing her nearer to the bridle, and the secure seating behind the ears. Verbena focused her eyes on the goal, refusing to be intimidated by the distance to the ground. Eventually, she made it up to the bridle and the reins tucked into the headband. Straddling the neck behind the ears, Verbena untucked the reins and wiggled herself into position.
She had learned upon arrival of the dangers of Storm’s Edge, and though she had made it to the fortress in relative safety she’d been admonished for going too far from its safety alone. Fortunately, the OOA was present in Storm's Edge and she had often seen their capes coming to and fro from the woods and the fortress. She’d since found that at least one of them was often available and willing to accompany her on a harvest. As a new member of the OOA, for the most part fellow members seemed as eager to get to know her as she was to get to know them. Verbena wasn't familiar with this type of group mentality and assumed the friendliness was extended to all folk.
Clicking to Dollop, the mare forlornly left her breakfast to the younger Dew and followed Verbena’s guidance towards the medical building. With many horses frequenting the grounds, the crowd maneuvered about the mare with indifference – not noticing the almost invisible form of the Tunawa behind her ears. Verbena whistled and chirped as they padded towards the medical set-up, her mind already leaping through trees and rolling in dew, far from Storm’s Edge palisades.
“Yohoo!” She called into the building, throwing her voice as she would in the forests canopy, “Mistral Woods? Plants?”
she broached in her halting common.
OOC: Verbena is speaking in common.
~Credit to Phobius
