The Importance of Adaptation

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Dawn was surprised to find that she wasn’t alone when she woke up. The two dalhari were still in the room! Actually, they were still passed out on the bed next to her. She wondered why they were still asleep, before remembering that she’d had a nap and a long rest with Zhaen, while the musicians had played all night. She got out of bed quietly, hoping not to wake her companions. They obviously needed their rest.

The lack of light seeping though the window told her that she had slept all day. Of course, that meant that there was probably very little to do, and even less to eat, around the village. After all, the festival had ended so why would anyone be out?

Still, she couldn’t just hang around the room, waiting for someone to wake up. Prall had mentioned at one point that the wellhouse never closed. Maybe she should go take a bath, since she’d gone bathing in the mud, and Zhaen’s brief wash-off hadn’t gotten all of it. Also, her clothes could use a good scrubbing. Dawn grimaced as she pulled on her now stiff and gritty jeans and sticky boots. Instead of making noise by digging around in her pack, she just hefted the entire thing onto her shoulders.

When Dawn got outside, she was struck by the utter silence of the village. In Sunnydale there was always some sort of noise, even if it was just the distant honking of cars, the hum of an air conditioner, or the sounds of a television. Here, though, the only noises she heard were insects chirping. It was eerie. She hadn’t noticed how quiet it was before now—even though she was sure that sleeping out in the desert had been the same way.

The guard at the wellhouse nodded slightly as she entered. As the only human in the village, she was rather memorable, so he had no reason to worry about her. When she got inside, she immediately bumped into a wall. There weren’t any lamps lit in the entranceway like there had been before. She placed a hand on one wall, walking forward. Soon the dim glow of light became visible in front of her. Apparently there was a lamp burning somewhere in the main chamber.

When she got there, she dumped her pack to one side and walked over to the lamp. Several others stood next to it, so she retrieved one and lit it from the other. She figured that since no one was around, no one would care if she just carried the thing with her.

However, it didn’t matter that everyone else was asleep; she wasn’t bathing in the main pool. She grabbed up her pack and carried it through the south door. The portal led to a hallway with doors on either side. She kept walking until she got to the end of the hallway, spooked by the shadows her lamp cast on the walls, ceiling and floor. Finally she ducked into a doorway, finding herself in a small chamber dominated by a pool of water. It sat right in the floor, and was flanked by a couple of benches. A row of pots sat on one bench, drawing Dawn’s gaze.

After stowing her pack next to a bench, she sat the lamp down next to the pots and investigated. They turned out to contain a variety of what seemed to be bathing products. At least, they certainly smelled like them. Dawn was pleased that they were there, since she didn’t have anything with her. The last time she’d gotten to bathe, Prall had lent her some sort of soap so strong it nearly ate her skin off. At least she hadn’t needed (wanted) a bath for a long time afterwards.

The water was cold, but Dawn didn’t mind too much. After all, it was a bath. The soaps were much better than Prall’s, so she could actually enjoy washing her hair and getting cleaned up. She wondered what happened to the water once she was done with it. Was there an attendant or something? Or was it reused? Ugh. When she started to climb out of the pool, she noticed a small knob on one of the rocks that made up the low stone border around the water. Curious, she pulled on it. A metal rod came up with the knob and she heard the sound of water rushing out. She watched in surprise as the pool drained rather quickly. Apparently she’d found the drain plug, such as it was. Once the pool was empty, she pushed it back down. A small door closed, sealing the pool once more.

Dawn frowned. How was she supposed to fill it back up? She looked around, shivering a little. It was rather dim in the chamber, so she couldn’t see well. Maybe a similar mechanism existed elsewhere. Taking up the lamp, she stepped back in the pool to look at the railing. On the side opposite the first knob, she found a second. She pulled up on it, and then gave a high-pitched yelp as a blast of cold water hit her belly. Yup, she’d found the faucet. A second little door had opened, letting water in. She moved to the side, setting her lamp down. Once her hands were free, she levered herself up to sit on the ledge and wait for the pool to fill. It didn’t take very long, and once it was about to where it had been when she’d entered, she pushed down on the knob and shut the water off. How nifty.

Having figured out the vagaries of orth plumbing, Dawn dried off and pulled on some cleaner cloths, continuing to borrow the shirt Duens had loaned her because it was cleaner than the rest. She bundled her things up and trekked off to find the north chamber, where she could wash her clothes.

When she got there she found a wide, open room with several large pools. Washing didn’t need privacy, so there weren’t separate chambers. Dawn was disappointed to not find tubs of soap here like she’d found in the other chamber. At least Prall’s soap had gotten her clothes spotless. There were huge pots of fine, clean sand here and there. What was that for?

She looked around, wondering how she was supposed to…Wait a minute. Hadn’t she learned in history class about how people used to wash their clothes on rocks, using sand to clean them? It sounded pretty primitive to her. But when she reached into the cold water, she felt layer of sand in the bottom. Yup, that’s what they’d been using it for. She guessed that it was just her day to learn how to live in the dark ages.

It took her several tries to figure out how to use the sand and the slanted, rough stones to scrub her clothes clean. After a while she had gotten good enough to get a rhythm down and the washing went faster. She didn’t think the wash water just got dumped, so she left it there and exited, taking her damp clothes with her. She wondered where she’d leave them to dry, since she didn’t see any clotheslines.

When she got back outside, she found the sky brightening with the morning sun. Had she been in there that long, or had it been that early when she’d gotten up? Since she didn’t have a watch, she didn’t know. The guard smiled as she walked by, heading toward the inn.

Nobody but the innkeeper was in the main room of the inn, so Dawn returned to her room, glad she’d remembered to take a key with her. She crept in as silently as possible, but saw that her stealth wasn’t necessary. Both dalhari were dead asleep and hadn’t so much as moved in the time she’d been gone. She closed the door quietly and shook out her damp clothes, draping them near the cracked-open windows so they’d dry quickly.

Once her chores were done, Dawn quickly grew bored. No one seemed to be even nearing consciousness, which meant that she had no one to talk to and couldn’t do anything…A thought occurred to her, so she began to dig through her pack as quietly as possible. Once she’d retrieved what she’d been looking for, she grabbed up Prall’s hat and slipped out of the room again.

“Would you like breakfast?”

Dawn squeaked in surprise and spun around. The innkeeper was standing behind her.

“Um, sure,” She said, grateful that the guy was speaking her language. She followed him into the main room, where he gave her a loaf of bread. She looked at it for a moment and shrugged, figuring that at least it was warm and fresh. After thanking the innkeeper, Dawn left the inn and headed toward the far edge of town.

She shuffled her way through the sand and dirt until she’d cleared the last building, not really knowing where she was going. Just outside town she found a promising-looking rock outcropping. It was about twenty yards off the main road, but the ground was fairly level. When she got there, she plopped down on a flat rock and leaned against its neighbor, which was much taller. Once situated, Dawn dug her pen out of a pocket where she’d stored it and opened her journal. Despite all her misgivings about why she was here, it was an adventure well worth recording. Maybe even if she didn’t survive to find Xander, a journal would.

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Marni was bent over a bowl of hif shwir when Dawn returned to the inn a couple of hours after midday. The f’lh glanced up and nodded a greeting. “Are they up yet?” Dawn asked as she sat down across from Marni.

“Yeah, I think they went with Prall to the wellhouse,” Marni replied. She waved over Dawn’s head, signaling to the innkeeper. A minute later, a bowl of hif shwir appeared in front of her.

“Thanks,” Dawn said just before digging in. She could get used to the food around here, even if it did taste a bit different from what she was used to. Today’s hif shwir was sort of sweet, like it had fruit in it or something. Still, it wasn’t bad. She was just wiping up the last of the broth when Zhaen and Duens walked into the inn, carrying piles of damp clothing.

“Good morning,” Dawn said cheerfully. Duens rolled his eyes and disappeared down a hallway. Zhaen stopped for a moment to talk to Marni and Dawn.

“Prall is talking to the village elders now,” Zhaen said. “When he gets back, we’re meeting in our room.”

Dawn watched the dark dalhari leave. “Is everything ok?”

Marni shrugged. “Probably. It’ll be better when we get paid, though. I doubt the village would try to withhold payment. The meeting, though, is to decide what to do next.”

Dawn frowned. “I thought that you all already knew where you were going.”

“We always meet when we move on,” Marni replied vaguely. “We would have in Baign, but there wasn’t time.”

The f’lh left a few minutes later to bathe. Dawn went back to the room to check on the clothes. Someone had opened the window up, letting in the hot, dry air and bright sunshine. Because of that, her clothes were very much dry. She folded them up and stowed them in her pack.

She was doodling in her journal an hour later when Zhaen returned to the room, accompanied by Duens. “Feeling better?” Duens asked as he sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Yeah,” Dawn replied, not going into detail. She didn’t know of Zhaen had talked to the others about it, but she didn’t want to share the specifics of her breakdown.

A couple of minutes later, someone knocked on the door. Zhaen opened it, revealing Prall and Marni. The pair stepped inside, closing the door behind them. Marni rested against the bed next to Duens, while Prall leaned on the closed door.

“So,” Zhaen started slowly from the seat she had taken.

“We were paid well,” Prall reported, holding up a bag of coins. Even to Dawn’s untrained eye, it looked hefty. “And there was a gift as well,” He continued. “They also gave some advice for the walk to Havbo.”

Duens nodded. “This is good, of course. Now, there are some things we need to discuss.”

Dawn got a cold feeling. She knew she hadn’t been contributing to the group, not at all. In fact, she’d pretty much become a mooch. She didn’t know what to do though. What did she have to offer them, or anyone? The middle of the desert wasn’t where she would have chosen to be stranded, but there were worse places, like Baign.

“Dawn?” Prall said quietly. She jerked her head up. The room had fallen silent while she’d been pondering her situation.

Dawn shifted uncomfortably. “I can’t do anything!”

Marni twitched in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t do anything to help you, or pay for all the help you’ve given me. I’m just some sort of freeloader. I guess I should just stay here. Maybe I can find some sort of work or something,” Dawn blurted out.

Zhaen and Duens looked at each other. Well, they had been trying to find ways to broach the subject of helping out to the girl, but it looked like she’d beaten them to it. “Can you play, perhaps?” Zhaen asked.

Dawn looked at them incredulously. “Play? Me? On anything you’ve got?”

Duens shrugged. “We can teach you. If you play, you get equal parts of what we earn, to support yourself with.”

She thought about it. It was an option, of course. “But what if I’m no good?”

Marni laughed. “Between the four of us, we could teach a fish to sing and play the liow.”

Dawn nodded slowly. It could work…and at the very least it would give both her and them something to do. “Um…can we give it a trial period maybe? Until we get to the next decent sized place? Then if it’s no good, I can find someplace to stay.”

“I think that will work,” Duens said, already knowing that the four of them wouldn’t let her fail. It was a challenge of sorts, and they loved challenges.

“So what’s this gift you mentioned?” Marni asked Prall, changing the subject.

Prall grinned. “One of the elders has an old cyar’dil that a bunch of traveling musicians left about ten years ago. No one here can play it, so they threw it in with the payment.” He reached behind him to pull out the instrument.

Dawn peered closely at the thing. It looked like Duens’ cyar’val, only longer and wider, with if possible more holes. It might have been old, but Dawn couldn’t tell it for the stains on the wood. It didn’t have the fine sheen that Duens’ well cared-for instrument did. In fact, it was kind of ugly, with light and dark mottled spots everywhere.

Duens reached for the instrument. He knew that sometimes instruments like this were junk, left too long without any care, but that sometimes they surprised you by being almost perfect, if bad-looking. He played a few notes. The instrument was good—especially considering its condition. It had never been of the highest quality, but it could be a fine practice and learning piece. “It will do,” He said, offering it to Dawn.

She took it absently. “So you can play it?” She asked Duens. He seemed to be the ‘woodwinds’ person of the quartet; she’d counted at least three different instruments in his pack. Zhaen had her den-liow, of course. Prall carried both a traedl, which was a weird string instrument, and a thrufna, which was little more than a set of metal slivers that got beaten together. Marni had a set of small and medium sized jasniy drums.

“Yes, but it’s for you now,” Duens replied. Of all of them, he had the most ‘spare’ instruments, since his were the easiest to carry about. This way, she could learn something and be able to play it all the time, without depriving someone else of their primary instrument. While all of them could play all the instruments, they were far better at their own. Besides, he knew that Marni wouldn’t let the girl near her drums, Prall’s traedl was in dire need of new strings, and they couldn’t risk damage to Zhaen’s den-liow, which was used in practically every song.

“Me?” Dawn squeaked, almost dropping the flute. “But I’m no good at this stuff.”

“Didn’t you mention playing a sort of instrument when you were younger?” Marni asked.

Dawn frowned. She had played the recorder, but that was ages ago. “I might have, but that was so long ago…”

Zhaen shook her head. “That doesn’t matter. You’ll be fine, and if it doesn’t work out, we’ll think of something else.”

Dawn nodded slowly, still looking at the instrument. Maybe if she got good at it, they’d let her do something about the look of it. The thing may have sounded good, but it was really ugly.

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Marni winced as another piercing shriek came from the cyar’dil Dawn was…well, she wasn’t sure if she’d call it playing. It was more like the sound of an ifnan giving birth.

“Not so hard, Dawn. It’s more like breathing. You’re forcing too much air through the instrument. It can’t handle it, so it shrieks,” Duens said calmly.

Dawn sighed and tried again. For the past day, Duens had been trying to teach her the first note on the instrument. It was an uphill battle for both of them. She just couldn’t get the hang of blowing correctly, so the darned thing always sounded like a dying cat. “I’m not getting this, Duens. It’s just not working.”

“Take a break and we’ll try again,” He said.

“No, keep going,” Zhaen ordered firmly. Duens looked at her, but she warned him off. She had an idea. “Dawn?” She said when the girl didn’t immediately comply.

Dawn frowned at the dalhari but raised the instrument. She began again, hating the discordant wailing. “Keep playing that note, Dawn. Don’t let it drop off, no matter what,” Zhaen said to the girl.

Dawn shrugged and continued. If Zhaen wanted a headache, she was more than willing to provide. A few minutes later, though, she wasn’t so sure she liked the exercise. They had started walking up a gradual incline, which was making her out of breath. She huffed and gulped air, trying to keep up the sound.

Zhaen watched and listened as the note Dawn was butchering faded down to its normal level. By the time they had crested the hill, Dawn had managed to keep the note steady at that lower level without passing out. She also managed to keep it that way after she caught her breath.

Duens was impressed. He’d have to remember that technique. It made Dawn learn to control her breathing, since the normal deep gasping of climbing such terrain wouldn’t accommodate playing a cyar’dil. Once she’d picked up on the control part of playing, the rest wouldn’t be too hard. Well, he hoped it wouldn’t be too hard.

Dawn quit playing a bit later, tired and still out of breath. At least she’d learned about how much air she could force through the cyar'dil. Now if only she could progress past that one note…

“That’s enough for now, Dawn. We’ll try some more this evening,” Duens said. Dawn smirked when she heard Marni sigh in relief. The f’lh couldn’t say a word, though, since she’d been very much in support of Dawn learning to carry her own weight.

When they stopped for the night, Dawn didn’t feel like playing. Her lips were sore and she felt hoarse. Duens took pity on her and offered to show her how to care for the instrument while Prall prepared dinner.

“But why should we? I mean, it’s already in really bad shape,” Dawn said, holding up the stained cyar’dil.

“That’s mostly just the looks of the instrument,” Duens said. “At least, at this point. If you continue to treat it, it will last for many years. The wood that they’re carved out of is extremely tough.” He handed her a small cloth soaked in the oils he used on his cyar’val. “If its appearance bothers you, we can try to find a dyemaster or a woodworker who can stain it some other color to cover the stains up.”

Dawn nodded slowly as she copied Duens’ ministrations on his cyar’val. The dry wood soaked up the oil and she had to apply more to the cloth. When she was finished she had a slick, shiny and stained cyar’dil. By then dinner was done so she set aside the instrument and accepted some food from Zhaen, who was ladling it out.

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