They expected me to sleep here, I thought as I stared at the soft yellow cloth draped above me over the massive bed I lay on. It had been a long day but I couldn’t sleep.
This morning the caravan of white clothed humans I had traveled with for the past moon, since the destruction of the only family I knew, had dropped me off at some gate and driven off. When I had tried to follow them, to continue on with those that I slightly knew, they sent me back to the gate. The leader of the white clothed humans had spoken to a man dressed in darkened animal skin from neck to knees, not counting his upper arms that were open or the metal wrapped around his lower arms from slightly below the elbows to just above the wrist. He carried a thin but straight stick as tall as he was and disappeared inside the gate when the leader walked away. After I was forced to return to the gate, he returned a few minutes later and a younger man dressed much the same way motioned for me to follow him. He led me into a room filled with drying plants where I stood for a long time before a lady came towards me and reached for me. I started to back away but realized she meant me no harm. I sensed the youngish looking lady was really much older than she looked, in fact, she reminded me of the Seer in many ways. At this point she was merely curious. She spoke to me but I couldn’t understand. When she approached me again, I refused to back up. When she touched my face numerous times I sensed she was confused and scared. Something was happening that she had no clues to and that was very different from what she was used to. Her confusion was blocking her inner sight but she did not realize it and I had no way to tell her. After touching my face a few times she stepped back and looked at me for a moment before spinning and walking off.
I stood there for a while until someone brought me a liquid filled with juicy meat and soft vegetables that I ate by hand and drank as they gave me nothing else to use. I was aware that to do so was rude to humans, to eat with one’s hands, but I had no choice as they gave me nothing else to use, just the dirt bowl they gave me. I had watched the humans in the caravan have this type of food at night around their fire but they had used small wooden things in their hands to poke the meat and vegetables and a different wooden tool to pick up the liquid. Having only been given the hard meat or raw vegetables I found when I wandered into the forest they refused to enter, I had never learned to use those tools. However, I knew enough to know it was likely rude that I had not been offered those tools to eat my meal. Still, I said nothing when the girl left the food and when she came back some time later to retrieve it. Not that I could say much as the language they spoke was different than the one the white clothed humans had spoken and I had just started to understand what those humans had told me to do.
Eventually three women had shown up and led me to this room where they took my cloths off and laid my skin coverings, the ones the herd had helped me make that I had worn under the whitish cloths the members of the caravan had insisted I wear, on a wooden curved box against the back wall. Completely naked, they scrubbed me down until my tan skin turned red and they poured extremely hot water over my head. It ran down my skin to pool at my feet in the large wooden bowl where I stood while it cooled and the women roughly dried me before leaving the room. A few moments later a young women barely older than a girl came in to help me dress in a few layers of cloth that covered me completely from neck to toes. That done, she took the whitish cloths I had been wearing and backed out of the room smiling nicely.
I had then used the rest of the water still in the massive bowl to clean the skins brought in by my trips hunting with the herd and laid them on the stone outside the door to a stone area suspended high above the ground below that allowed me to see for a long distance over the city below. I was just coming in when a man knocked on the door leading to the main room and entered. I immediately sensed a lot of anger was stirred in him at the sight of me though I didn’t know why. He reached out to touch my face and I stopped myself from backing up towards the door outside after a few steps. He meant no harm to me, in fact, his anger seemed to be on my behalf. His gentle stroking of my skin brought slight pain but I doubt I reacted. He muttered something I didn’t understand as he stepped back before standing tall and talking in a language I was surprised to understand. He said he was sorry for my rough treatment and would see to it that they were punished and I was never treated that way again. He understood I likely did not understand the words he was saying but that his father had taken me in as his ward and the son would make sure I was taught all I needed to know to take up that role, beginning with basic manners. In the morning a lady would meet with me to teach me things like how to eat, posture, curtsying, and hopefully how to speak. Once I managed with the basics I could be allowed to eat with the others in the main dinning room under the supervision of my tutor or choose to eat alone with my tutor until I was more comfortable. However, he told me there was a ball set for four moons away and I would be expected to be there and not be an embarrassment or his father would send me to live with a relative until I learned better. The way he spoke was very flowery and managed to say in two hours what I could have said in five minutes, as Hermana would have said, although I don’t believe he spoke for two hours. I had never before understood what she had meant when she used that phrase. Now I did and it almost made me laugh. As much as the herd would speak in riddles, at least they said what they meant. This man was trying to say I needed to learn to be human without saying anything was wrong with me. The way he contradicted himself all the time was most amusing.
Anyways, eventually he backed out of the room assigned me and I was alone again. I was standing out on the stone area above the city when the girl returned with a long metal tray, I think it’s called, and a cup of hot water with plants in it similar to what I was used to from the herd and a juicy meat, vegetable, and wheat dish with the tools needed to eat it. The girl showed me how to use the tools and returned later to take the empty dishes. I ate very messily and was glad not to have an audience but soon the food was gone and I was again at a loss about what to do. After the tray had been removed, as had the massive bowl of dirty water, the girl had moved some of the cloths on the bed and motioned me to get in after helping me remove some of my clothes.
Now I was in the bed and couldn’t sleep, even turning this way and that didn’t help. The clothes I still wore continually got tangled in the bed clothes and I couldn’t get comfortable. Finally I got up and stood on the stone area high above the city and stared at the stars. As with so many nights these past moons, the stars held no message but the familiar sight calmed me and I had no wish to leave the night for the stuffy bed. However, I couldn’t sleep there, or could I? The stone was hard and I doubted many humans choose to sleep under the stars when a bed is nearby, but could it be done? Rushing back to the bed I removed some of the thick blankets and dropped them in a messy heap in the stone before returning for a pillow and a thin cloth to lay under. With the cloths under me and some protection from the slight breezes as well as the stars above me, I finally fell asleep.
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