Private A Familiar Shape in the Crowd

[Meri Vale]

Meri brightened immediately at the verdict, looking rather more pleased with herself than successfully recommending a cup of tea probably warranted. She waited until Maur had finished signing before reaching for her own cup again. After another sip, she considered it for a moment, as though the question required a proper assessment, before setting it back down and freeing her hands.

[[Mine's good too. I think yours is more interesting, though.]] Meri glanced toward Maur's cup. [[Now I'm curious about the Togorian kind. If this isn't as good, I'll have to try the real thing someday so I know what I'm competing with.]]

A small smile accompanied the last sign before she picked up her tea again. Getting credit apparently mattered, but now Meri had given herself something else to be curious about. After another drink, she set the cup down. [[Is smoked tea something everyone drinks on Togoria, or was it something your family liked?]]

Maur

 

[Maur]

The Togorian grinned a wide toothy grin. [[Typically, Togorians like flavor to punch them in the face. Call it the consequences of allying with the Mandalorians so often. I'd call this lightly smoked. Togorian smoked tea tastes like a campfire in a cup.]]

Maur took a drink from her teacup, the delicate vessel looking ridiculously small in her hands. Even after two sips, there was only about half the cup left.

[[It's a cultural drink but like anything else, some do and some don't,]] Maur signed, shrugging at the end. [[There's no accounting for taste. The men do like to help make it whenever they come back to the city for a time. I think it's got something to do with the fire.]]

She winked playfully and took another drink. [[As for my family, yeah, most of us enjoy it. Most. My oldest and youngest sister don't like it.]]

[[Like I said before, there's no accounting for taste,]] she signed.



Meri Vale

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri laughed at the description of being punched in the face by flavor, although campfire in a cup made her look at Maur's tea with renewed suspicion. She wasn't entirely certain whether that sounded good or terrible. Probably both. Once Maur finished signing, Meri took another drink of her considerably less aggressive tea before setting the cup down again.

[[Now I really want to try it.]] Her hands paused briefly before she added, [[Although maybe a small cup the first time. I don't know if I'm ready to drink an entire campfire.]]

Hearing Maur talk about her sisters interested Meri even more than the tea did. She had already heard bits and pieces about Togorian life, but meeting the people Maur had grown up with would be entirely different from hearing about them secondhand. [[If we ever travel together, I'd like to meet them. Your family, I mean. And see Togoria for myself.]] Meri's expression softened as she considered that. [[I've never really gotten to know somebody else's whole family before. I don't have one anymore, so I think I'd like that.]]

She hesitated, realizing that had come out rather more sadly than she'd intended, and a small smile returned. [[Besides, I need to meet your sisters so I can decide for myself which ones have terrible taste.]]

Maur

 

[Maur]

[[If we can find one you think is small enough. There's no shame in disliking it though. As I said,]] Maur's smile turned mischievous, [[there's no accounting for taste.]]

She sat back as Meri continued, her hands working with more speed than in the year previous. It touched Maur; the signing wasn't perfect or fluent, but Meri had learned. And maybe she had learned for other people, some of the friends she mentioned, but she had learned and was using it even though Maur could hear. It wasn't often that someone spoke her language.

Her fingers drummed the table as she thought about bringing Meri home to visit Togoria and meet her family. Outsiders were still generally disliked, still only allowed one crash landing, but she knew her family. A kit with no family of her own? Maur expected her mother to scold her over her parenting skills and lack of properly feeding Meri. It wouldn't matter that Meri had been abroad or studying at school.

The trouble would be getting the Captain to sign off on a trip to Togoria as well as taking on a non-paying passenger.

A huff of air left where a laugh would have been. [[I have four of them. And a brother but the menfolk of Togoria stay nomadic, following the Margrave on eternal hunts. The oldest is bossy, the youngest is also bossy, the second oldest is only slightly bossy, and the second youngest asks a lot of questions about everything always. I'm in the middle of all that. Perfectly balanced, you might say.]]

She added a wink at the end to let Meri know that she was being full of hot air right now and that this was all affectionate sibling teasing.



Meri Vale
Mentioned: Rian Varek (please let's get the smuggling crew going T_T)

 

[Meri Vale]

Meri's eyebrows climbed progressively higher as Maur described her sisters. Four of them were already far more than Meri could imagine growing up with, and adding a brother somewhere out following the Margrave on his hunts made Maur's family seem enormous by comparison. Meri had grown up without siblings, so the idea of so many people belonging to the same immediate family was hard to picture without imagining absolute chaos.

[[Four sisters sounds like a lot without even counting your brother.]] The description that followed did little to make the family sound less overwhelming. Three varieties of bossy, one relentlessly curious sister, a brother somewhere out hunting, and Maur apparently occupying the perfectly balanced center of it all.

Meri caught the wink and smiled. [[I'm starting to think your definition of balanced might be different from mine.]] Her hands slowed slightly as another thought occurred to her. [[I didn't have brothers or sisters growing up. I think I'd have liked it, though. Maybe not five of them all at once, but one or two.]]

The smile returned as she considered Maur's description again. [[I think I want to meet the one who asks questions about everything. She sounds sensible.]] Meri paused before adding with obvious amusement, [[Although if your mother is anything like your sisters, I'm beginning to suspect you're going to take me to Togoria, and I'll immediately have six people telling me what to do.]]

Maur

 

[Maur]

Meri reacted about as Maur expected. Most people didn't grow up with five siblings. Still, Maur knew more overwhelming families. One of her childhood friends was one of eleven. She suspected that the menfolk's long absence and the intense monogamy that pervaded their people might have something to do with larger families.

Meri mentioned growing up without siblings. Her ears twitched as she cocked her head slightly, trying to imagine what growing up with no siblings was like. Quiet, sure, maybe even peaceful. No one talking when you'd had enough, no one playing with toys or touching stuff you didn't want touched. No one competing with you constantly or telling you what to do. But... no one to play with when you had to stay home. No one to stand up for you when you couldn't. No inside jokes, no whispered conversations at midnight, none of that.

It sounded... lonely.

Maur smiled softly when Meri talked about what she imagined her family to be like. She had exaggerated for the joke, incorrectly assuming Meri would have known how such dynamics would work. Perhaps she should more truthfully elaborate.

[[In my Mother's house, there is but one voice that leads,]] Maur said. She paused to finish the tea in one long drink and gently set the teacup down. [[Our city is matriarchal, and even Father and Rroth, my brother, take orders when they're home. It is something everyone understands when they are home. There will only be one person telling you what to do. But most of my siblings are married and have their own families to look after. It's not likely they will visit when I get a chance to invite you.]]

[[Far more likely,]] she continued, [[is meeting my ship family. I will have to arrange things with the captain to make a visit home happen.]]



Meri Vale