Legend of Kumari (1x1 w/ RoarkSouth)

[RoarkSouth]

The wild girl, now formerly known as Kumari, pointed to Chris and repeated his name. She did the same for the drawing. Chris was ecstatic. If this went well, not only could they avert a major misunderstanding with the natives, but he could learn their culture and share it with the world. People back home were always interested about the peoples who resided deep in unexplored areas like this.

Kumari was now leaning close to the bars, an somewhat inquisitive look in her eyes. Perhaps she wanted to learn more?

Chris turned and walked to one of the nearby trees and pointed to it. "Tree," he said, before picking up a rock and showing it to her. "Rock"

 

[PrincessSkye]

She watched his mouth closely as he walked to a tree and spoke its name in his tounge. This sound wasn't as tricky to mimic though it still came out garbled and deep in her guttural accent and Kumari shook her head opening her mouth to try again.

"Tree....Ock..." She looked at the stone in his hand then at him, "R...r...Rock..." Deep throated once again and she had ended up rolling the 'r' more than necessary but nodded at herself. She felt she was getting the concept of this little name game Chris has started up.

Kumari backed away from the bars taking the few short steps towards the cage door and pointed to the lock. She then looked at him tapping the large metal object.

"Rock..."

 

[RoarkSouth]

The sun was now starting to set and Kumari had learned quite a few words in English. The last several hours had been spent pointing to or drawing objects and saying their names, or completing actions such as running, jumping, and sitting and their associated verbiage. She also specifically requested, in her own way, what his glasses were called, and what they did. She had surprised Chris with her ability to learn at the rate she did, and she could speak some sentences, though grammatically horrible and far from complete. Reginald had come back to check on him several times and, to Chris's surprise, actually endorsed the effort to cross the language barrier.

"Will make it easier to not get strung up by the locals," he had said.

The rest of the group was slowly making their way back to the site with their camp gear in tow, or at least that's what the distant sound of brush moving, chopping vines, and the occasional curse meant.

Chris roughly sketched a picture of a man walking under a tree and turned it to Kumari. "Man walks under tree," he said before sketching a tiger jumping over a rock and showing it to Kumari.. Hopefully this exercise would help Kumari understand word relation and sentence structure. Chris waited for Kumari to speak.

 

[PrincessSkye]

The strange native woman seemed to soak up the new knowledge faster then the even stranger man could give it. She mastered simple labels quickly, reciting them back when he held up the objects or did the motions with ease even if the words were garbled by her thick accent. In turn she tried to teach him the names as well, though her language consisted of a lot of deep throated sounds that only the sharpest of ears could catch. She was pleased, thought, to find he could repeated back the words in a general manner and nodded vigorously when he did so.

By now, the wound on her side had blackened over with clots of blood, the flesh around it irritated. During the movement portion of the speaking lesson, Kumari moved slowly, resorting to only watching him after a time.

“….” Kumari narrowed her eyes at his drawing, munching slowly on a piece of bread she had grabbed from the tray of food, the bowl of soup nearly gone and left forgotten as she concentrated on his words.

“Man…lks under.tree.” She spoke slowly then lifted her gaze up to meet his, eyebrows lifting for confirmation of her pronunciation. She then glanced back down at the next drawing and those eyes went wide.

Without much thought, the woman jumped up then immediately winced, a hand going to her side before she pointed at herself.

“Kumari….Kumari…” She pointed at the drawing of the tiger, then to herself again lips pulled back in what seemed to be a sort of grin.

“C…Chris…Kumari…tiger….grrr!” She limped up to the bars, and for the first time since attacking him earlier that day, reached through pointing at the sketch.

 

[RoarkSouth]

Chris backed a little ways from the bars, still remembering the thumping he had gotten earlier, and did a double take looking at the sketch. He did draw a tiger right? Yes, he did, and he was getting quite the reaction from Kumari. She was pointing back and forth from the tiger to herself. What did she mean? Perhaps...

Chris went back to his book and quickly sketched out three drawings side by side. One was the tiger caged, the next was a rough interpretation of Kumari opening the door and the tiger leaving, and the last was Kumarii stuck in the cage.

"Kumari free tiger?" Chris asked pointing to each of the sketches in order.

 

[PrincessSkye]

The woman watched as he took a step back, looking down at the drawing she had been pointing at. Eagerly Kumari waited at the bars, both hands now clasping the bars as she watched him intently. Her eyes narrowed on the new drawings he presented to her, head tilting a bit to the words he spoke.

“Free…?” The woman looked up at Chris a little confused shaking her head and pointing to the tiger in the cage. “Kumari….” She said quietly then moved her hand, skipping completely over the second image to the one of her in the cage. “Tiger…”

She looked back up at him, intense stormy eyes now looking a little pleading now. “Home…”

 

[RoarkSouth]

What was Kumarii trying to say, that her and the tiger was one? Did she mean that the tiger turned into her? Chris shook the thought out of his head. There was no room for flights of fancy. It probably was something of religious significance, like that that she and the tiger shared the same soul or other such rubbish. What was easily understandable, however, was that she wanted to go home.

Chris paced back and forth. How could he explain why he couldn't let her go. Holding up his pencil, he began to sketch another few scenes, only pausing when he heard the sound of something moving through the forest, but decided to ignore it. It was probably just the expedition. Finishing his sketches, he turned them towards Kumarii and pointed to each one.

"I free," he said, pointing to a clearly drawn picture of himself opening the gate a freeing Kumarii. "You tell tribe," Chris flipped to the next picture of Kumarii coming back to tribe and speaking. "Kumarii tribe kills Chris and Chris' tribe," He flipped to the last page, showing the tribe members from last page killing him and some other similarly dressed figures. Chris stared into her eyes before looking down. "Chris does not want to die."