[Open] Learning a new life

[theexile]

WHO: Kattrin and whoever
WHAT: Kattrin is getting used to being in the lowlands but there are still some things that are odd. Some time in the daily life of...
WHEN: Throughout the month
WHERE: Various locations
NOTES: Warning for talk about past injuries

A. Strange Gifts

Within the hold it had been common to trade with other cultures for things. The dwarves and Orlesians had been the two most common. However, things had been different since coming here. It seemed the most common form of trade involved coin. She didn't fully understand it but she'd learned to find ways to get this coin in order to obtain food and supplies for her daily life.

So it had been a surprise to her when she'd instead received a book for healing the child of a woman. Apparently she'd felt bad for not having the coin to give for the treatment and this had been all she'd had. Kattrin had eventually accepted it but now she sat by a wall near the docks (fennec sleeping in her pack but tail poking out) looking at it. Just turning it over and over. She wasn't even aware of what it said for she couldn't read at all herself.

Probably not the normal reaction to a book by any means, right?

B. Phantom Pains

Months ago she'd left her hold. At the time she'd still been treating her injuries, healing her back even as she was running. It hadn't been easy and there were times when she wondered if she'd done it correctly. She was sure she hadn't today as she rolled her shoulders uncomfortably while wandering the market for supplies she could buy.

Eventually though someone bumped into her and jostled the staff on her back. Though there was technically no pain it was almost as if some memory wished for that to not be the case. She gave a little hiss and had to mentally remind herself that the scars there weren't actually hurting.

"...It is nothing. I am not hurt." It was unclear if that was to someone who saw what happened and looked her way or if it was to the person who bumped her and now was concerned they'd caused injury. Either way it had to be said. Sometimes memories and phantoms of the past were just...inconvenient.

Comments

[theexile]

"There does not seem to be." She gave a shrug. "It was given to me as a price for healing though I said I required nothing."

She held it out for him to take if he wanted a better look at it. A cookbook it seemed. Recipes that must have been in that family for generations. Not that she would know since, like she said, there were no pictures.

[meds4sale]

"Debts weigh heavy on one's pride," he mused, taking the offered book carefully, and leafing through the pages. It didn't seem particularly valuable in the monetary sense, but he could tell when something had been passed between generations. "...Especially when they are incurred by one who says they would owe nothing. It is a book of recipes."

He handed it back.

"Perhaps she could teach you the recipes," he suggested. That way, the woman's pride would be satisfied, a treasured heirloom returned, and Kattrin could actually make use of the book's contents.

[theexile]

"Recipes?" She blinked in surprise as she opened the book again to look inside again. So that was what this was. His solution was a clever one as well and would mean she could return this book to the woman who had given it to her.

"Thank you. I will offer this suggestion to her." Especially now that she knew what she held in her hands.

"It may be good to learn to make the food of these lands since the ingredients are different from what I am used to."

[meds4sale]

"That is an understandable sentiment," he said, a small smile creeping into his lips. It was a strange expression for him, fleeting, gone seemingly as soon as it appeared, but it had certainly been there. If he missed anything from his home, it was the food he was so used to. Being in a port city, he could generally make do with the next best thing, but he'd yet to run across an adequate substitute for his favourite tofu dishes.

"What sort of things were you used to cooking?"

[theexile]

"The Avvar tend to prepare food that will last for many days to come. The weather in the mountains is more unpredictable and if it snows it is best to have food for that time since the likelihood of hunters succeeding in a hunt is small. The gods favor the prepared."

So smoked foods, dried vegetation. Things that could last and still be eaten sometime later. "There were fresh things but often the Avvar would spend time smoking and drying food for the cold. There was much to eat that way."