Annie's Dress

While this is a serious tale about Annie being in Nagrand at the moment, it's also an intentionally light hearted one. Annie's always like the draenei since meeting Halya, and she's liked Outland since seeing it with Led, so when she's out there, she tends to be really interested in the culture while still being her gruff and tactless self. So yeah, hope it's an entertaining read!

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'Annie's Dress'

Annie reached her arms above her head, clasping her hands together and stretching comfortably. The summerlight of Nagrand shimmered around her, playing across the sweeping meadows of tall, reedy grass, glinting silver-white off a distant waterfall. The cries of the birds that woke her in the morning were still foreign and strange, but slowly the landscape was becoming familiar. This was Annie's third visit to Telaar, and though she still couldn't read the faces of the Kurenai who kept the settlement or name all the beasts that roamed the savanna, and though the twisting purple skies still made her blink when she looked upwards at night, she was beginning to see why Ledgic had grown attached to Nagrand.

Pushing some stray hair out of her eyes, Annie set off down the path leading from the inn into the cluster of walkways and round-roofed huts where the inhabitants of Telaar made their homes and their shops. She nodded at the watchers as she passed; one or two nodded back, but most continued on in their solid strides without so much as blinking. The Broken were funny; she knew from Led that they were shy of strangers, but she figured they weren't just being rude. They probably recognised her, since it wasn't as if there were scores of foreigners passing through; maybe they just didn't nod. Or smile. Or make facial expressions that humans could pick up on very well.

She'd have to ask Halya about the Broken next time she saw her. Even if it took awhile to get it out of her between all the 'ums' and 'ohs,' Halya was a wealth of information. Annie chuckled softly as she stepped across a sluggish lily-crusted stream via a wooden bridge. She was used to being a stranger, but not usually with completely different races in lands with purple skies. The world – or, uh, the various worlds? – were complicated.

Turning into a dusty path lined with neat, brown-clay huts, Annie looked down at herself with a moment's hesitation. Stranger or no, she'd decided she wanted to see the woman who had made her the dress that she was wearing. She remembered their first meeting with wry humour: Annie had been wandering, wide-eyed, among the waterways of Telaar, when a female with the hunched shoulders and soft, worn face of the Broken standing in the doorway of one of the huts had actually started talking to her.

It was difficult to judge wealth and poverty among the Kurenai; as such a small and inward-focused tribe, Annie had the idea that they all looked after each other to some extent. Still, they had their tradesmen and their artisans, and they needed to make a living. And although the last thing in the world Annie had really wanted for herself at that moment had been a dress, she had wanted to talk; she had wanted company and conversation, and someone to tell her about the place.

Unfortunately the accents had made a twisted tangle out of the conversation, but in the end, Annie had let herself be fitted for a dress of the softest cloth she'd ever felt, in a very draenic pattern of blues and creams and browns. And, she thought, at least she was nearly sure, she finally saw one of the Kurenai smile.

Sliding out of her reminiscences, Annie paused before a doorway over which a drape of plain clay-coloured cloth hung. Did people here knock at doors? Probably not?

She cleared her throat. 'Ah... Muura? Anyone abou'?'

A dusky violet hand, its callused fingers deft with years of working the working of needle, thread and loom, drew back the curtain and for the second time, Annie saw one of the Kurenai smile.

'Annie. It has been long.' The woman called Muura made a careful bow, her movements graceful in their own way.

Annie grinned, drawing her foot back to return the bow in as good an imitation as she could muster. Well the accent was still going to be a little bit of a problem, but at least Muura remembered her name, even if she did say it more like 'Aanni,' drawing out the first syllable to about three times its usual length.

'Aye 's been long. Led's brough' me back 'gain, though' I'd come see ye.' Annie paused as Muura looked at her calmly for a moment without saying anything. Accent, right. 'That is. Ehm. I've come back with Led t' see the place again, an' wanted to say 'ello to ye.'

Annie peered up into the gently impassive face, trying to gauge if her efforts to speak more clearly were helping.

'That is very kind,' said Muura, stepping aside from the doorway and gesturing to Annie to enter. At least that signal was the same, Annie thought, passing through with another smile into the comfortable interior. Muura's workplace was small and immaculate; against one side stood her loom, worktable, and a set of shelves with bolts of cloth, shimmering purples like the Nagrand sky, soft lush greens, browns as rippling and changeable in the light as a talbuk's hide. The other half of the room held two round stools, well cushioned, and a table with some sort of elaborate decorative vase. It was onto one of the stools that Annie settled, drawing her legs up beside her, pulling her skirt over them, and leaning on the table. (If she sat straight up, her feet didn't touch the ground.)

'What is it you and your....' Muura paused, bending over the vase on the table and dipping a taper into it. A soft glow radiated from the vessel, which it seemed was more lamp than vase. All of the woman's movements were delicate and careful, despite her size in comparison to Annie, despite the solidity with which her kind tended to walk and go about their business. She said something – a word in her own language, Annie imagined – and then settled herself onto the other seat. '…your man, do here in Telaar today?'

As she rested her chin on her hand, Annie tried her best not to smirk. At a guess, the word had probably been something like 'husband,' though she really didn't know much about the mating habits of either the traditional draenei or the Broken. She knew they paired up with some measure of permanence, but well, that was one issue on which it had been nigh on impossible to get Halya to explain things to her. All she had ended up with was that sex worked about the same (Halya had blushed every shade of blue in existence), and that Halya had never personally had the experience of a young man courting her.

'Well Ledgic – my bloke – were stationed 'ere with the watch, er, the Alliance Watch tha' is, a couple years back. Ye know? Sa' he likes Nagrand a lo', an' comin' back.'

Muura dipped her head in a very small movement of assent and folded her graceful seamstress' hands in her lap. 'My... sister, is the word? She knows of this Ledgic.' Another pause. 'But what is a bloke?'

Annie, despite her best efforts, began to laugh. 'Sorry, lass. Er. Let's see. A bloke... a lad. A man.'

'And lass... it means a woman?'

Annie nodded. She was quick, was Muura, though Annie didn't think she spoke common very often. She didn't need to, so far out here in Outland, among her own kind. Annie liked her slow and measured speech, even though she had to pay careful attention to pick out the familiar words through the heavily amended pronunciation, full of hushing s's and long vowels.

'I will tell my friends.' Muura's face flickered in something that might have been a smile and she drew from a shelf behind her a small pot and two earthenware vessels, pouring some honey-coloured liquid into each.

'An' ye?' said Annie, taking the proffered cup and lifting it to sniff the drink. 'Still keepin' clothes on everyone?'

The Broken sipped from her drink and looked toward Annie, hesitating her few moments as usual before replying. 'Yes, I am always making clothes. Are you in need of some? Or perhaps, your bloke?'

Annie took a hasty sip of her drink to avoid laughing again at the sound of her own sloppy language spoken in that slow and graceful foreign tone. It was sweet on the tongue, but light... like water with the flavour of fruit, though no fruit she'd ever tasted.

'Na', cheers lass. This one suits me proper well.' She smoothed the cornflower blue cloth over her knee with her free hand. She wasn't going to admit it to anyone, and she sure wasn't going to make a habit of wearing the dress anywhere else, but she really did like it. She felt more at home in it here, among the people whose style of clothing it was.

Muura tilted her head, the natural creases in her violet skin deepening, and Annie, as she sipped again from the drink, felt herself being inspected. 'Wear it with honour among your kind, and think of us,' she said at last, and Annie looked up.

'I'll... er, try,' she said, realising it was probably not the moment to add that the dress was also great for shagging in. And then as Annie looked over the grave face, she added, 'I jus' wear shirts an' trousers mos'ly, y' know. Sa' when I look a' this I always think o' Nagrand.'

Muura smiled, and as both women – one thoughtful, calm and humble, the other quick and brown and coarse – sipped from their drinks, a certain comfort settled in around them, and Annie thought then that maybe it was not such a bad thing, for the moment, to be a stranger far from home.

Aniane wrote:(Halya had blushed every shade of blue in existence)

Haha! I loved it all, especially Muura! You portrayed her in such a sweet but simple way, she made me laugh! Loved it all, although I was let down near the end when you mentioned that little tidbit about the dress *ahem*! Again, a well written stroy - well done!

I'm glad you enjoyed it! It's great to know someone's getting some fun out of my writing, and you've been really kind with the comments.

And as to the 'tidbit about the dress,' yeah xD -- Annie has a knack for making nice moments inappropriate without meaning to.