"It was dark in the woods." said the ranger, "my pursuer had by then tripped off the path they set for me and stumbled over traps I set for him." He raised his fist to the moon and walked with a wide smile to the center of their small group.
"I can't say for what he saw, but I knew he knew the land better than I did and I sought to turn that around. By camouflaging myself as a vine tree, the rowdy hunter moved under the heavy drip-drip of the canopy and right past me." he continued confidently, "the rain wounded him as much as my quill ended him."
A light chuckle burst from Kollulut siting on a root, while the other wore mild befuddlement on their faces. Kollulut translated the joke to the others but the smiles did not feel as earned.
Bor suppressed his desire to mope and complained to Kollulut, "I swear, I thought I had it that time."
"If you meant you stabbed, choked or bludgeoned the warrior-never-to-be then... certainly," returned Kollulut.
"I always heard your people's style of speech was the most artistic and metaphor rich," Bor countered. "Scolli is a pretty flexible language too. I should not be having such a hard time with yours."
"That's only true when your drawing it," Kollulut corrected, "and most of my people have no time for drawing. I wouldn't even be able to say if you drew a word in Step writing correctly or not. I'd have an easier time reading
sang than step; that's to tell you. Just as so, I can only speak scolli, not read it."
The step man rose from his seat and shewed the rest to finish prepping the stage. Then he and Bor went back to practicing the lines Bor did not understand until Kollulut was satisfied.
"Ioti is wicked, ain't she," Bor started, before Kollulut intercepted, "She's a murtana, of course she's wicked." His face turned grim when he said this.
Ioti, the director, was a difficult woman at the best of times. She was a prolific buyer of slaves for her show troop and had purchased him from the Beron chief who had sicced five potential adventurers on him with the intent to kill him. So she thought she would have a try. As he heard, Ioti was cruel in her punishments for seemingly little breaches by her underlings; free or not. But she never attempted anything more than a whipping tongue against Bor.
"Priestesses are holy folk and holy folk often repress their loins to preserve themselves. I think she wants to hump me, but can't bring herself to ask beyond insults."
"If that is truly so, then run like you ran from your hunter." Kollulut warned, "seriously though, murtanas are not priests or priestesses or of any holy order. I think you misunderstood. She is more like... a citlālin?"
"A performer?" Bor questioned, "I wouldn't call whispering from the edge of a stage, a performance?"
"No..." Kollulut seemed to struggle, "well... maybe? That's not quite right, but I don't know how to explain it to you."
"She's never been as much trouble as the stories made her out to be. So I'm fine." Bor shrugged, "maybe that's why she promoted me."
"Promoted?"
"Shucks, I don't know the
sang or step words for it," Bor replied, "it's like to make higher. To give more responsibility on a job."
"Oh, like what?"
Just as he was about to answer, he saw from over his companion's shoulder, the woman gesture angrily at him. He excused himself and walked over with a wide smile and arms spread open.
"Have you them?"
Ioti's reply was to throw a roll of ribbon tied papers at him, which he managed to catch. But when he opened it, he was met with lines of black markings he didn't recognize. "What's this?"
"
Eeatian," Ioti answered, "from one of the tribes in the flooded hills. This is one of their prayers you would be singing on stage."
"Do you mean the
Floodlands?"
Ioti did not like being questioned, repeated or corrected; Bor had forgotten and she expectedly cursed him in the rapid tone of her native language that Bor did not understand. "For the best perhaps. Her Gods can't get me if her words can't stick to my head".
Bor looked back to the writings and pondered on how the words were said and questioned their origins as, though, he had never been, he was scholarly enough to know writings that far south depended partly on colour to relay meaning. Everything being all black, regardless of the stylized strokes, may well be repeating the same word or phrase over and over again. But he dare not tell the murtana that.
"I will coach you on the lines," she seemed to read his mind, "it's a measly set but surly you can manage that."
"So I listen to you serenade me," he tried to smile. Except, the dark haired woman immediately pulled a short dagger from her waist accompanied by the sound of two grinding stones. She positioned it in front of her right eye with its flat side facing her partner.
It was likely the ugliest thing Bor had ever seen. He might have expected a person like her to carry a blade of bone, obsidian or iron since she traveled so much. His time shirking his schooling had apparently now come against him because he couldn't for his life tell what it was made of. It was definitely hard, else it couldn't have made that sound or be fitted to its ropy grip with yellow glittering from between her fingers. But the blade looked soft, almost like a brown mush and pitted with red and black eyes along the edges.
Ioti smiled her own smile at Bor's startled reaction, "Precisely," she whispered.
You groan as she spoke again,
"Here, hold the knife," a woman's voice said. Absently, your fingers clench around something with a roughspun touch and so light it might turn you over.
Beads of sweat roll off your pale face as you can only watch the knife held in your hand as it aligns to your crotch.
"Stab it in the middle. Do it." the whisper said.
The blade dug deep into his body and dissolved into sand as you split in two. Blood and seed spilled along edge and handle to drip onto the stage floor. And there the dagger stayed, for a moment longer than believed; standing prominent and daunting and enclosed by your unfeeling hand.
"You missed the penis?"
Bor could not think.
"Cut it."
He sawed at himself. More aware and whole than what he was before but still powerless to stop. Sliced up and down in movement with the feelings of grains lacing over his hand and arm. The jerks butchered his parts.
"You have one last cut."
His fell on the sandy stage and you continued to bleed through his new wound. Unknowing fear and anguish expressed through the eyes amidst a rousing applause.
I think I was just confused about who you were writing about, but I was reading quite fast so I guess I just missed some of the pronouns, lol.