The most difficult part of moving from Vishanatar to Branturhem was the weather. No matter what time of the year it was, Vishanatar was hot, everywhere. From Pelalulei on the north end of the North Island to Aaliyalei on the southern coast of South Island, no matter the time of year, it never got as cold as the warmest of Branturhem's summer months.
ZÌ£ala had never seen snow before coming to the north. Now, after six months here, he would have been happy if he never saw any of it again. It was the middle of the season that Branturhem folks called spring, but that meant that the city was only covered in about half a foot of snow instead of two or more. On some days it got warm enough for the snow to melt, partially, but then it would always be so cold the next day that it would refreeze, and then the whole city was covered in a sheet of ice with snow on top of it. The first time that ZÌ£ala had experienced this particular phenomenon, he had slipped and broken his arm in the street right outside the university dormitory that served as his home in this frozen hell.
Still, it wasn't all bad. He worked a side-job at the Magnis Inn, which paid decently. Enough for him to eat every day, and he even usually had a bit of pocket money leftover at the end of each week, when he received his salary. Plus, it had turned out to be a fantastic way to meet people. Branturhem was a port city, one of the biggest trading hubs in the world, and so every day there were lots of people from all sorts of exotic places who needed a bed for the night. The Magnis Inn was right by the West Docks, it had a lot of rooms, and it was relatively cheap, so it was always busy.
He cleaned rooms and made beds and occasionally helped in the kitchen, but since he could read and was decent with numbers, his job mostly consisted of manning the front room, where customers were greeted and could buy rooms. He liked doing that part of the job, because most of it was just sitting around and waiting for people to show up looking for a bed.
One morning, he was sitting there behind the desk, working his way through a particularly tough chapter of Ori Tegsdotir's
A Complete and Comprehensive Grammar of the Shalian Language
when the front door opened. Along with the burst of cold air, a woman entered. She was slender, wearing a heavy fur cloak under which a shirt of silvery-white mail gleamed. She had a shortsword and a dagger hanging from scabbards on her leather belt, which set ZÌ£ala ill-at-ease until he noticed the emblem carved into the gorget that covered her upper-chest: a many-petaled flower. She was a Chrysanthemum Knight.
"Hello," she said. "I am looking for a room for a few nights. Do you have any available?" She was Vishana, one of Ẓala's kinfolk. The dark skin and dark hair were a clue- most of the native Branturhem folks had skin like milk and hair the color of fire or straw- but she also spoke Norðmol with an accent, well-hidden but still noticeable if you knew what to listen for.
"A few," said ZÌ£ala in Vishanalo. "One bed?"
"Two," said the woman in the same language. "I have friends coming."
Ẓala put her in room 32, which had a nice view of the University's famous clock tower. She paid up for an entire week, and he handed her the key. "Third floor, first one on the right. You been in the Norðmark long, baṣi?"
She smiled. "Nearly half of my life. My order," she tapped the chrysanthemum on her chest, "is based here."
"I've been here half a year. Does it ever get any warmer?"
She laughed politely. "No, but you get used to it. Would you be so kind as to send my friends up when they arrive?"
"Of course. How will I know them?"
"Suminara will probably introduce herself to you as soon as she walks in. She is Shalian, and has white hair that nearly trails the ground when she walks." The woman glanced at the book that ̣Zala had open on the desk. "She'd love it if you greeted her in Shalian. The other is Kvana. You will know her, because she will be the tallest woman that you have ever seen."
"Really? I don't know, my cousin Visvela is very tall."
"Kvana is taller. Trust me, you'll see. My name is Naala, if they ask for me."
"Certainly. Enjoy your stay, baṣi."
The woman went upstairs, and ZÌ£ala went back to Shalian noun declensions. Why were there so many gods-damned endings? In Vishana, a horse was
afik
. Easy. In Norðmol, a horse could be
hest
,
hesta
, or
hests
depending on what it was doing. More than one horse was
hestar
,
hestara
, or
hestars
. More complicated, but not too hard. In Shalian, as far as ZÌ£ala could tell, there were twelve different ways to say "horse"- four if it was a single horse, four if there were two horses, and four for if there were three or more. Who needed that much precision when it came to talking about horses? There weren't even that many horses in Felu Shala. They weren't native there, and the whole place was covered in thick forest, so they weren't much use except on trade roads.
About half an hour later, ZÌ£ala felt like he was just starting to make some progress when the bell rang again. He looked up. There was a dress in the doorway- simple, linen with a cord belt, off-white in color, holding back an incredibly large bosom, but then, absolutely everything about the woman wearing it was large. She was wide of hip, heavyset about the middle, and so tall that ZÌ£ala couldn't see her face, because it was above the doorframe. She had to duck to step inside. Her skin was dark, like the previous customer's, but her hair was the color of fresh-fallen snow. She stomped her feet outside the door. They were... Bare? ZÌ£ala did a double-take just to make sure that he wasn't seeing things. Yes, this woman had been walking through the snow-covered streets of Branturhem with no shoes on. Come to think of it- that dress was thin, and it left her arms, most of her legs, and a good portion of her chest uncovered. And yet, as she stepped inside she did not so much as shiver. The cold did not seem to affect her at all. She closed the door behind her and hefted the huge satchel that she was carrying as she stood up to her full height.
She was the tallest woman that ZÌ£ala had ever seen. Easily.
"You are Kvana, I presume?"
The woman smiled. "Oh, Naala beat me here, I guess." She had a more pronounced accent than the previous customer, one that ZÌ£ala couldn't identify.
"She told me to send you up to her when you arrived. Room 32. Third floor, first on the left."
"Excellent. How much do we owe for the room?"
"Nothing. Your friend paid for a week."
"Ah, she would have. Thank you very much." She went up the stairs, surprisingly light on her feet for someone so huge, and that was it. ZÌ£ala whistled quietly and went back to his book.
Not five minutes had passed when the door opened again. The woman who came in this time was tall, though not as tall as his cousin Visvela. Her ears were pointed, and she had skin the color of the sky on a clear day, eyes the color of the sun, and hair the color of a cloud. It was bound up in a long, braided tail that hung all the way to her calves.
ZÌ£ala said the very first phrase that he had learned in his studies of Shalian: "
Pon sholiat. Kwame batesitu sha?
" Good day. How are you?
Her face lit up. "
Batesis pelnomie ponzhom! Suminare eom. Sha ati?
"
ZÌ£ala hesitated, for two reasons. First, he hadn't the slightest idea what she'd just said to him. He assumed it was something like "I am fine, how are you?", but he had never heard it said that way before. The other reason was that she had just taken off her heavy fur coat. Underneath, she was wearing a robe made of purple silk, open-fronted, but she wore it closed, with a sash. Well, mostly closed. The two halves of the front made a large V shape, which showed off a good portion of what were easily the largest breasts that ZÌ£ala had ever seen. They were even bigger than the giant woman's, and she was much taller and, proportionally, more heavyset than this newcomer.
"I, uh..."
She laughed. "It is alright, I speak Norðmol. I said, 'I am very well. I am Suminara. You are?'"
"ZÌ£ala," said ZÌ£ala.
"It is nice to meet you, Zala!"
"ZÌ£ala. You have friends here who told me to expect your arrival."
"A beautiful Chrysanthemum Knight and a very tall white-haired woman, yes?"
"The very same. They are upstairs, room 32."
"Fantastic. That book, you are studying Shalian?" She leaned forward to look at it, and ZÌ£ala could just make out the edge of a dark blue areola peeking above the hem of her robe. "Ah... Yes. It is very difficult."
She stood, and hint of areola disappeared again. "My friends are expecting me, but I would be happy to help you later. Come to the room when you are free, I will tell you how to say things."
When she had gone up the stairs, ZÌ£ala sat back in his chair. He didn't find either of the last two women attractive- he liked his girls small and slim- but bodies like that practically demanded a moment of reflection. He wondered if the two of them were the tallest and biggest-chested women in the world? They may well have been.
Branturhem was cold and miserable when it came to the weather, but he had to admit, there were some interesting people here.
---
The room was not especially large, but it was serviceable. The two beds were against opposite walls, the door between them. Naala was sitting on one of them, her back against the headboard. She had removed her armor, leaving her wearing only a pair of leather trousers and a strip of linen cloth that wrapped around and bound her breasts. Between her and her two friends she was the smallest-chested by far, though compared to most women she was anything but. She had a book balanced on her knees, and was reading while she absentmindedly talked to Kvana, who was sitting at the room's tiny corner desk with a quill and several sheets of parchment. It would have been small even for someone of less than her great stature, so she had eschewed the chair entirely. She was sitting on the floor as she wrote.
"'I am Kvana.'," said Kvana.
"
Lele Kvana
," said Naala, not looking up from her book.
The scribble of a quill. "No word for 'am'?"
"Not in that phrase. You could also say
Beha laale Kvana
. 'My name is Kvana.'"
"Name my Kvana?"
"Mm-hmm. The 'my' comes after the word, like in Shalian."
"No copula. Hmm... 'My dog.'"
"
Talonu laale
."
"'My shirt.'"
"
Mbehala laale
."
"'My rock.'"
"
Aḍe laale
. You're looking for gendered nouns, yes? Vishana doesn't have them. Also,
aḍe
is is different from
ade
.
Aḍe
is 'rock'.
Ade
is 'cloth.'"
"I can't hear the difference."
"Most people can't, until they learn how to listen for it."
"Hmm. I'll come back to that later. 'My dog bites a man.'"
"
Talonu laale xonde rambeme
.'"
More scratching. "'Man'?"
"
Xonde
."
"
Rambeme
means 'bite', then?"
"'Bites'.
