The rough wooden floor rumbled and groaned, and Bastard smelled stone and oil strong in the air. He was warm and blanketed, and a red light was hitting his face. Chattering was all around him in a strange language, birdlike and flowing, with no stops or breaks like the Broken tongue that Bastard spoke. He opened his eyes reluctantly, blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes to rid them of the sleep before looking around in dull surprise. He was in what looked to be the back of a wagon completely filled with all kinds of tools and equipment for only Illum knows what, and peculiarly, all made of wood. None of the tools had a speck of metal in them, not even the ones that Bastard could guess the purposes of like the pickaxes and chisels. How strange, he thought absent-mindedly, looking up and admiring the art on the cover of the caravan. There were patters he had never imagined before, and mountains sewn with such beauty he could almost imagine himself there. In the corner was his favourite scene however. A small boy stared up at a great man opposite him around a campfire, as he held a stick in his hand, that as the canvas rippled transformed into a snake, before it seemingly ate the fire and tranformed once again into a great dragon, and flew away, as Bastard stared up in the same awe as the little boy at the campfire. How great a mage he must be to create with fire instead of destroying with it, Bastard thought, closing his eyes to sleep again. It would be much more useful to the girl if he was her teacher.
His eyes snapped open once more at the thought of the girl. Feck, where was he? Had he really been that oblivious? He tried to stand up, but instead hit his head on the canvas and tripped on a loose tool, collapsing out of the wagon clumsily. It was only then, now out in the open and surrounded by no small number of other wagons that he realised he was fully nude. Chattering laughter was all around him, and he went as red as a Tenorman can, and hastily covered himself with his hands before diving back into the wagon to find his clothes. He scrambled around, looking for clothes, possessions, anything, but he came up empty. Only the red blanket that he had been sleeping under would work. He wrapped it around his waist like a toga before turning around to leave, steal back his clothes and money, and find the girl. It was then that the caravan rolled suddenly to a stop, and lurched forward as if some weight had been lifted off of it. Many small hands reached through the flaps of the wagon, grasping and clutching at the foreign thing in their camp, before a gruff voice shouted "Enam, enam!", at them, and the hands laughed and retracted, running away and planning their next mischief. The flaps at the end of the wagon were pulled apart and Bastard stared at the man behind them. He was short, only around 5 feet, and had a great brown beard dotted with glass beads in all the colours he could imagine, and wood carvings woven in lovingly, with little knots at the end to hold them in place. His eyes were piercing blue and his nose was an enormous lumpy thing. A Dwarv, Bastard thought in shock. He was seeing a Dwarv.
"Elið? Renash? Caladd? Broken? Julun?" The Dwarv asked.
"Broken, I speak Broken." He replied slowly. He knew some of the dwarves words, Renash was spoken by the Tenormen so he knew a conversational amount of that, and Julun was spoken in Hor-Kia, which he knew none of, but the rest of them were alien to him, especially Elið, which didn't even sound human. The Dwarv sighed and spat.
"Broken. Of course, always that fucking language. Too many consonants and halts, it makes you think about everything you say, and I can't just Talk. The only good thing about your countries before was was your mountains, they were truly lovely, full of grit and old metals. You've taken them all now, and your mountains smell empty and cold, and all for what? Some war over a gold mine? Your people despise mages so why do you make more? Petty power, it kills mind and dulls the nose." The Dwarv didn't seem angry despite his words, more upset, and a little resigned. "I do not understand you humans sometimes. Money, war, your infatuation with power and knowledge. These serve no more purpose than to further themselves and always you fall into their grip, it brings no small amount of frustration to me personally. And now as a result, we Dwarvs' are forced to move to Gulter. The mountains there do not smell as warm as yours once did." He said, wrinkling his nose of no small proportions.
Bastard stood, a little overwhelmed by what he was hearing from the Dwarv who had quite evidently been wanting to say that to a human for quite some time. Bastard couldn't say for sure that he was wrong (though he would have liked to), but try as he might he couldn't think of anything. He frowned. Words had never been his forté.
"I disagree." He said simply. "I quite like people."
The Dwarv nodded, a thoughtful expression on his face. "A poor answer, and one that makes only a small amount of sense." He came to his conclusion eventually, "but a short one. Not too bad for a human, all things considered." He laughed abruptly, a dry and incredibly low chuckle, and ducked out of the flaps. Bastard heard his steps moving towards what he assumed was the front of the wagon.
"I have made you new fabrics, since your old ones seem to have been burned away or something of the sort. The girl tried to explain it to us, but to tell the truth, she is a bad Talker. She is too scared of speaking out of turn and too proud to let anyone know, so she just goes on and on without actually saying something of meaning, we only understood after a few hours what she was on about. Ach, she doesn't know how to just Talk, not like us Dwarv." He shouted from the front. His prior complaints about the Broken tongue didn't seem to hold back his speaking at all Bastard thought, quite amazed. His steps trudged back round to the back of the wagon and the Dwarv stopped, before clambering ungracefully inside, making the comparatively ginormous man already inside pull the sheet even tighter. Uncaring, the Dwarv held out his hand for Bastard to shake.
"My name is Anuð. I was named by a great Mage who went by the name of Fishook when I was a boy. It means Bird-speaker, for my talkative nature." Said the Dwarv that Bastard now knew was named Anuð. He'd said his extravagant greeting with complete seriousness, no hint of joking in his eyes. Bastards thoughts ran quick, Anuð was clearly expecting a similar greeting, and yet he had no Man's name to tell him. So he braced himself, stuck out one of his upper hands, and said with as much respect as he could muster, "My names are Bastard, Hangnail, and Irin. The first is for my lack of a father, the second was for my small stature and irritating effect I had on my teacher, Brenn, and the last was my mother's name for me, meaning 'Little Hare'. You can call me Bastard."