Two Crows Watch from the Gallows Tree (part 3)

(Hahaha omg yes he’s just v perceptive but Ky is O.o )

It worked. She thought nothing. He heard nothing. It was wonderful.

(All the Ashes except maybe Sara and definitely not Michael have perception stats of like 19 or 20)

(God I love all these characters so much)

Tomhas glanced around the room, then stood. "Well. I for one need to stretch my legs; I haven't sat down this long in forever. Who wants to join me in the garden?" All of the youngest children, plus Wick, stood up as well.
"I want to go!" Marcella called.
"Auntie, would you like to come?" Wick asked. Ana shook her head, waving a hand at him.
"I'll stay here; the wind whipping in my face all the way here was more than enough to put me off the outdoors for a long while."

(I do too!)

Ky hesitated. Yet another choice. She wondered if she’d ever get better at making them, or if she’d just panic over and over again until she just died. Go or stay? Wick or Ana? Or would it be a choice between Tomhas and Ash? Both?

The thought of Ash staying here was almost enough to make her want to go. That plus the fact that she shadowed Tomhas most hours of the day, whenever made sense. Like the stray little kitten that he’d taken in.

But, then, Ana seemed nice. And so did Sara. And it’d been so very long since she’d gotten to sit in a group of — at least primarily — women. Some of the ladies in her township would invite her over sometimes to spend time with them and their own daughters. She figured it was because they felt bad she didn’t have a Mama. But she still missed it. More than she ever imagined she’d miss it. There was a certain maternal energy that radiated off all these women that made her want to be around it and see what they were like.

And that was worth staying around Ash for. She forced herself to settle back into her seat. Her decision. Unless literally anyone questioned it, in which case she’d change her mind in an instant.

"If that's the party, let's go!" Tomhas dipped his head to Gaius, Sara, Anneke, Ana, and his daughters, then led the way out of the room. Gaius fidgeted with his cane absently, eyes flicking about the room to see if anybody was going to talk. What he really wanted was to go up to the library or up to bed and sleep, but decorum dictated that he remain here until someone else decided to leave. Which was looking extremely unlikely.

(“His daughter” my heartttt)

The women in her township liked her. She was trying to remember why. What’d she been like back then, to endear the women in her life?

She talked a lot back then. Wasn’t going to be doing that here.

She’d been thoughtful. Inquisitive. She always got praised for asking good questions.

So what question could she ask?

Ky hesitated a long, long moment.

Should she even try to make small talk? She was still so very anxious about it all. She didn’t want to make Tomhas and Anneke look bad in front of their families. Maybe she should just keep her mouth shut. That was the easiest way to refrain from looking stupid, usually.

Gaius eventually turned his eyes to Ky, curious. She was so withdrawn, but there was an energy in her, a tenseness that spoke of many things she wanted to do. He could see her mind racing in her eyes. What was she thinking in there? Was she still afraid of something?

"So you said you grew up somewhere where many of your friends couldn't read, Ky," Ana said, breaking the silence. Gaius admired her for that; she'd always been the sort to try and relieve tension. "Where is your hometown?"

(“Something”? Sir I think you mean literally everything xD)

“In the South!” Ky said with a grin, glad for a safe topic to talk about. “Near the coast. It was just a small farming town but it had a lot of really great people and was a really good place to live.”

"That's lovely." Ana smiled at her. "You speak excellent Upper Tongue, my dear. I couldn't place your accent at all!"

“Thank you!” Ky dipped her head, cheeks a bit warm from the compliment as she returned the smile. “I’d been a personal assistant for about a year before I came here, so I studied a bunch of languages and stuff. I’ve tried very hard to have as neutral of an accent as I could… helps with pronunciation… for me, anyway.”

"Well, your control is excellent." Ana nodded at her. "I used to love to imitate accents when I was a little girl. Our village was a hotspot for merchants and peddlers, so all manner of people came through there. I would spend hours talking to myself while I did my chores, trying to mimic the voices I heard."
"She used to do it as a trick to entertain me and Wick," Anneke added. "She's quite good."

Ky grinned. “What’s your favorite accent?”

"Orchian, definitely, though I've only met two people with that accent. It's very rare nowadays. A very difficult accent to imitate."

(I’m gonna wing this but can’t remember the languages in your world so feel free to stop me if I go off the wrong direction lol)
(In cannon her native language is a tribal one that is outlawed and basically no one outside her region can speak it — which, unfortunately, why Aleth wanted her in the first place. She can speak Trade — which is me being lazy and just making a common language lol. Then she can speak two other languages on top of that and read a 5th, but can’t pronounce it… she’s only been with Aleth one year tho at this point so I have no concept on what languages she might know)
(Altho she was a slave two years prior to Aleth so maybe still fairly diverse?)

Ky nodded. “I found it nearly impossible when my m—“ did they know she’d been a slave? Should they know? “Previous employer wanted me to learn it. We had to cut our losses on that one, I’m afraid.”

(Ah interesting!)
(Orchian is almost a dead language at this point because the people who spoke it had specially adapted vocal cords. Only a few full Orchians remain and they're very old.)

"Lord Ash--Gaius--can almost speak it," Ana told her.
"Almost being the key word," Gaius said. It strained this throat; the language was very much like singing if birds learned lyrics.

(Oooh good to know!)

“What language is your favorite?” She asked him.