Hebron

This time it took less than a week before someone mentioned it.

“Not that I'm pryin’,” the caravan master said. “Person’s business is their own.”

That didn’t seem to need any more response than a nod.

“Only, there’ve been concerns.”

She waited.

His mouth twitched down even further. “Lot of the custom we’ve got is small clans, out here, keep to themselves mostly. Might not so much’s see a stranger outside of a few traders now and then. Simple folk. Hard to get their trust.”

There was another pause, but she didn’t see the need to fill this one, either. He hadn’t actually asked a question yet. Nothing needed correction. This would be more efficient if he’d simply say what he wanted.

“So sometimes they need explainin’ why that long fella in the third wagon back can’t quit wriggling, or why nobody carrying a pearl’s willing to sell. Basic stuff like that, what any dragon knows, and most Beastclans, too, but. Well. We’re pretty far from dragon territory.”

He looked past her for a moment, back towards the others. She had seen them start to gather some distance away.

“You unsettle ‘em,” he said. “And I can’t explain you, seein’ as you unsettle me, too.”

That was something worth responding to, something that might be useful to record. “Why is that?”

His face changed its expression. It was now the one she often saw when people first met her, when she told them however many days or weeks she’d been traveling alone since the last time, then requested to be allowed to accompany them. They would look at her in that manner and assure her that she was welcome. She had never observed it at this end of the cycle.

He displayed the expression now all the same, shifting his weight slightly. A pained leg, perhaps. “Most of your folk stay hidden better part of the year, but I’ve still met plenty in my time, and I know how easy you take new things up — things you see people do, hear ‘em say. You're catbirds. Never heard a song you couldn't mimic.”

She didn’t have much research on her own kind, and clearly not enough to draw any conclusions. Regardless, she’d heard this sort of anecdote enough times that it could well have a basis in fact.

“But you don’t. You just watch.” His mouth flattened out again. “You watch what everyone does and take notes. Y’don’t copy. Don’t even answer, half the time, when folks try to talk to you. You just stare. And that is damned unnerving.”

She nodded slowly, organizing her thoughts for later transcription. She didn’t have her journal to hand. “Previously you used the term ‘unsettling’. Would you say one is more severe than the other?”

Even with years of data, she still hadn’t determined the exact set of conditions that might cause laughter. The caravan master voiced one short burst of it now.

“We’ll be moving on without you,” he said. “You understand.”

Her documentation and tools were all in the bag slung across her shoulder. Ending her association with other travelers was, as always, very simple.

The caravan master went to join the others without speaking further.

It was an unexpected setback to be expelled from this group so quickly, but unlikely to impact her studies. She had been moving through this part of the world for some time now — exactly how long, she wasn’t sure without checking her notes — and doubted she’d learn much more than she already had. These particular merchants, the Beastclans their caravan had met, seemed much like all the ones she’d encountered before. They made as much sense to her as they ever would.

She would go north, she decided. She as yet had no data there. True, what she wished to learn might not be found anywhere in this world. She might never understand the others’ thoughts, motivations, feelings, as they all seemed instinctively to do amongst themselves. It mattered little. Further study was called for regardless.

It was time to move on.