Tam'nýer-a'

“Where are my blue shoes?”

Half in, half out of one of her closets, Væ was knelt down on the floor, throwing things around, dresses and stockings flying. One of her servant girls knelt down behind her in feigned sympathy for the momentous task of finding a specific pair of shoes in Væ’s cavernous dressing room and pretended to rifle through the piles of fabric that were quickly mounting up around her. Another one caught the dresses and stockings as they flew.

“Which blue shoes are you referring to, Taityl Oßläße?” a third servant girl unwisely chose to venture. Væ wheeled around, glaring, rolling her eyes expansively.

“Which blue-- Which blue shoes?” She did not quite know how to best elaborate -- was it not obvious which ones she meant? It should be blatantly obvious which ones she meant! “The ones with, with the straps -- oh, you know what, it doesn’t matter! Just pack all that up so we can leave already.”

She made a vague gesture toward all the clothes piled up in her servant girls’ arms or draped over their shoulders.

“All of it?”

The three women looked between each other, slightly aghast at the thought of trying to pack such an array of items into whatever number of suitcases and crates that could be easily transported to the girls' uncle Tîgró Gazæ's villa, but if they were hoping for clarification they could think again: Væ was already storming out of the room, clicking her tongue to make her Drr'ţö follow her.

“Dãos!” she called out, sweeping around the corridors of the estate like a only slightly unhinged ghost. “Sister! Are you ready to go?”

Contrary to her sister's last-minute efforts of packing, Dãos had already finished her packing almost half a (Tam)day before their departure. She had already been to their plantations several times and knew what to expect. While the clothes she had left behind the last time she had been there had become far too small for her, she still knew what to pack and had bought what she had still needed, including a proper hat against the sun. Puertagoe was a warm city but it still could not compare to the heat of ZàÞça.

Glancing up from her book as she waited in her green retreat, she wondered whether her sister had finished packing by now. She sounded stressed but frankly, it was most likely her own doing. Still, it would not be great to delay their ship. Perhaps her sibling needed something that she could help with.

"What is it?", she called back after having left the glass construction. While she would have preferred to use every free second to have one more glance at her sizable collection of plants, she knew better than to do so. Thankfully, she had already begun instructing one of the servants on their proper care a few days ago and could leave without too much of a bad feeling, knowing that they would, most likely, make it through her absence without a hitch.
Long strides carried her back towards the hallways of the main estate, bumping into her sibling not long after.

"What did you say, sister? I could not make out your words.", she asked once more, now being face to face.

“I was saying ‘Are you ready to go?’” Væ said truculently, a little put-out despite herself at the serene look on Dãos’s face. Why couldn’t Væ feel serene? And wouldn’t it be the sisterly thing for Dãos to do to at least try to appear a bit less graceful and tranquil? “So are you?”

Behind her, further down in the long corridor, three servant girls moved into view dragging heavy cases and crates of various sorts. On the very top of one sat Væ’s favorite leather satchel; once her servants had shifted all the luggage closer to the sisters Oßläße, she grabbed it and slung it over her shoulder.

“See, I’ve been ready for ages,” she said, not entirely truthfully yet entirely unwilling to admit to wrong-doing. “Don’t dally, sister, what if we miss our ship? Lüschka! Aloo! Let’s go!”

Væ’s Drr'ţö tried their best to keep in step with their mistress as she swanned off outside to where their carriage should be waiting.

"Oh, I see.", Dãos nodded, oblivious to her sister's take on her calmer approach to her travelling preparations. Glancing at her sister and then briefly at the servants doing her best to follow her with her part of their luggage, she quickly understood that it had been for the better that hers had been stowed away in their carriage already as the three girls had their hands full. In all honesty, she was even a little surprised that they even managed to carry what they were hauling around.

"Don't run too much - the ship will wait for us regardless. It is one of ours.", she called after her sibling, though more worried that she might trip with the whirlwind pace she was setting for the rest. Sighing softly, Dãos nodded at the servants before handing them a few coins for their efforts and told them to have a nice evening out once they were done with her sister's luggage. She was certain that Væ might have thought of this herself but given the chaos she had created while packing, she could only doubt that her sister had done so this time around.

Holding the book she had been reading to her chest, the younger sibling followed her sister to the carriage, sitting down next to the older one and settling down for the fairly short trip to the docks.
"Did you bring something to pass the time on the ship?", Dãos could not help but ask before they took off, wanting to make sure that her sister would not die of boredom atop the waves. She had packed in a set of cards but one game would only keep them occupied for so long.

If Væ knew anything about herself, it was that she was given to lapses of boredom; as such, she rarely traveled anywhere without preparing for those long empty stretches of time that were part and parcel with seafaring or even longer carriage rides.

“Of course,” she said, lifting a shoulder to indicate the satchel she was holding, hoisting it up. “I brought some letters I need to write, my embroidery kit, a spot of make-up in case I start feeling flushed, one of those romance books you used to read when you were a kid…”

Shoulder relaxing, she let the satchel fall down by her side again.

“And I have my boys, of course.” They were in their own separate compartment (no, not their crate -- Væ would have you know it wasn’t a crate -- it was its own part of the carriage, and a lavishly furnished part at that) in the back, but she turned and smiled at them. “Are you looking forward to going on vacation with your auntie Dãos?”

She turned back to her sister.

“Did you bring everything you need? Are we ready to set out?”

"Good -", Dãos tried to interject before her sister finished her list of items, which included one that she'd rather not have had included. It was not that she was particularly secretive about her secondary choice of leisure books but for some reason, it did bug her to openly admit to this past time of hers. (It was not as if she had stopped reading them either, but as their lives had drifted apart, it seemed as if her sister had become somewhat oblivious to this particular fact. Thankfully, if it was one of her older books, then it meant that it was one of the tamer stories she had read.)

Not knowing how to react to her sister's comment to towards her pets, Dãos simply stayed quiet until asked the same question. "I have a few books in my luggage, a pack of cards if you want to play and some unfinished drafts for my gardening diary, though I doubt the latter interests you."

Mentally checking everything off her list for a good minute to make sure that she had not forgotten anything, Dãos gave her okay to move out, signalling the coachman before leaning back into the fabric of the coach.
"I was surprised to hear that you were interested in going to ZàÞça.", she commented as the carriage set into motion, though her tone did not tell of any ill-meaning behind her words. "I thought the weather might not be suitable for your pets."

"What? They'll be fine," Væ said with the blissful air of somebody who takes for granted life will always provide for her. There was always something you could do, there was always some way things could be rectified given money enough and time. Dãos's suspicion that Væ wasn't very interested in her gardening diary was quite correct, though Væ didn't confirm it and instead acquiesced happily to playing cards: "And of course I want to play cards! What a grand idea."

She reflected once more and a little longer on Dãos's brief suggestion that she might not want to visit ZàÞça -- did she mean anything by it in particular? She knew very well that her sister didn't get on with her Drr'ţö; surely there was something else underlying her words than a simple concern for their well-being in a different climate.

"Sister, of course I'd want to go visit our uncle," she said quite carefully. "I know I haven't been for some time, but I do write to him regularly, you know. It's true I enjoy staying in the city rather more than leaving it, but..." She trailed off, unsure if Dãos was intimating something about the way Væ related to their family. Did she think she didn't love them? "Of course I'd want to go," she repeated a little lamely.

"I will take your word for it", the younger sister nodded, "I don't know much about their care - if at all." A careful smile flitted across her lips as she secretly noted their absence in the carriage itself. The two would roam the ship freely and she didn't mind that but in the small cabin for the short trip to the harbour, it felt nice to not have to deal with any potentially impatient animals.

Her sister's attempts at reading into her comments went by wholly unnoticed. It was not that Dãos did not think her sister incapable of doing so but simply a strange uncertainty as to what the other was thinking. They had been close in their childhood but eventually drifted apart and she had found it increasingly harder to understand what her sister thought or wanted. Perhaps their trip would rectify some of this strange distance between them.

Smiling softly, she added,
"I know you contact him, our letters are delivered by the same people after all - I just did not expect you joining us for the trip itself. I want you to know that I am glad you chose to, however."

This was true in every sense. While Dãos did not expect her sister to ever pick up the business side of the family, it was still reassuring to see that she showed at least moderate interest in their assets - they already had a rather troublesome brother, so she was positively relieved that her sister had at least a minimum line of sensibility.


"Do you have anything you want to do or see while we are in ZàÞça then?"