Gra'akast in Her Glory

With the mood more somber and toned down on the barge the latter half of the journey, waking to such noise was unexpected. Sleep had not been kind to Shalia following the oasis attack. In between that and numerous nightmares of the forsaken king, the ones she lost, and what would happen in the city, patches of darkness began to form beneath her eyes. If she were as pale as when she first came out here, she’d look gaunt and skeletal. A few pounds lost hadn't helped either on her already thin frame.

When she gazed upon the city, it was easy to forget that places like this could exist-- that they did beyond Helias alone. Arcadia looked to be full of natural but volatile beauty in the form of native settlements, flora, and fauna; going in with the perceptions of a foreigner was jarring. Once she moved past that mindset herself, spending years in nothing but camps and primitive villages made you put all of your previous experiences in the back of your mind. If you wanted to adapt and survive in Fang, or anywhere in the new continent for that matter, you would do so promptly.
A simplistic life of yurts and huts and herding cattle with long sticks. Playful brawling and mountain dogs and heads on spiked fences. Scattered ruins rich with history and snowy paw prints. Yak milk and cool streams and singing out into the great peaks and deep valleys. The new life she cherished with some vaguely distant familiarity to her one in Qinres village.

Gra’akast was different from all of that. It wasn't as opulent or populated as Helian holy settlements, but impressive nonetheless to the handful of Aghul gazing upon it now. Marrying the wild and brutal nature of Arcadia and little reminders of places like Orb and Shrine-Cities she had seen. The urban layout helped her imagine a city once teeming with buzzing prosperity, and the large domed structure drew her attention immediately. It all made her feel strangely calm, one of the last feelings she thought she’d have in this place.
This was the final step. Following this, the path was clear as the water in the oasis.

If she had more time between waking up and their arrival, she would have tried making herself more presentable. A frantic combing of the hair, a stop to take a bath, something to freshen her scent perhaps. How embarrassing.

~I did just travel all the way through a desert, through a sandstorm and other dangers. I could be in much worse shape.~

Shalia watched the tall man intently as they approached, listening the same as he welcomed her. Ascendant…some title demanding prestige no doubt by the mannerisms of the priests as well as himself. Odd, Amastan and Agizul hadn't mentioned anything regarding him in her questions about the city. At least not that she could recall, though she didn't poke around into who was all involved in running the Holy City beyond just the Prophetess-- her primary concern.

The Ozainae seemed to have a great understanding of Odon. Did they have their own language, or was it all adapted from the Odonine like a dialect the way some of the clans scattered around the mountain spoke? Did they have old forms of speech the way the clans did, too? As a lover of language, this had struck her curiously since she met Agizul with his fluent tongue. Being able to speak only Odon since her parting with Islana was pleasant, truthfully. Back to normal, no switching in and out to another language that--along with its own native people-- had almost entirely been dead to her for some time.

Shalia bowed her head to him with folded hands, the bare knuckles of which had done some minor healing and deep bruising. A full bow seemed customary, but she could not recall a recent time where she bowed completely to someone.

"Tamazzalt…the journey has been arduous. Thank you for the greeting,” she offered him a small smile. Her tone then shifted to something more passively aggressive. “I understand that the circumstances of the Prophetess are grim, but I do hope it won’t impede on the purpose of my visit.”