Trouble Maker

TROUBLE MAKER

JILL
CYTI

ZECHIA

I regaled those on Cyti, from asLoutha to Taffy, with my reports on how the ini in Zezki reacted to my dress. I was not much of a story teller, but feeling encouraged had actually imitated the looks I had gotten, which sent them, ini and human into hysterical laughter.

asLoutha decided that she, and a band of ini, would go to Zezki, carrying six chickens, claiming to want to trade them for a certain kind of cloth.

It was common knowledge that the xenophobic wiShelfa wouldn't eat 'human' food, i.e. the chickens. The point, of course, wasn't bringing food to a starving population, it was showing off clothing that would offend wiShelfa.

suThoma, asLoutha's mother-in-law, occasionally joined our group. She had hesitantly broken from 'tal'; that is the standard, but only just.  She wore quiet outfits of the newer cut, and did not fully participate in our 'revolution.'

I felt that she had only split from wiShelfa so as to facilitate her son's elevation, and was really still spiritually in wiShelfa's pocket.  She sought to divert asLoutha from the venture, as there was no point in the exercise save to cause dissension, but there was no thwarting; the ini were anxious for morning to come and their excursion.

I went to my house, feeling a tad guilty, but an odd sense of 'belonging'. I was not an outsider, I was not tolerated. I was a member of the community.

I slept long, so by the time I woke, the 'mission' had been completed, and the plaza raucous with the review. Knowing I wouldn't miss anything, I bathed, dressed, and in timely fashion moved to the 'breakfast' tent.

asLoutha and my women, as well as her retinue, liked to sit at a long table, (pinched from the Odin) under a tent they had made and dyed, and kept dying, and replacing so that one never knew what colours it would be.

They loved to set large platters on the table with quantities of food, and virtually dawdle over the meal. What food was left would feed those who 'ate off' our plates, our aides and everyone else.  

The point was to shout that we were NOT starving in Cyti as they were starving in Zezki.

As I arrived asLoutha greeted me warmly, coffee was poured into my cup, and she began to give me the second by micro-second review of exactly what happened when they landed in Zezki just after dawn.

There were no surprises, save the joy these ini took at lauding it over the others.

They were dressed, to be polite, as if in a musical comedy. They didn't usually wear so many colours or styles mixed and mismatched, but had obviously done so for the greatest 'shock' value.

As to the chickens, of course wiShelfa rejected them, and the ini had allowed the birds to 'escape', so those with a little more sense then superstition would have a full belly today.

I looked at our table, there were pancakes today, drenched in a strange syrup which was rather tasty. Taffy was proving that she had value.  I glanced at her, watching us from her kitchen door, she'd gotten a big

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 13.01.2022
ISBN: 978-3-7554-0525-2

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