Talontale

5: Numbers

"So, what's the talk?"

The sudden voice startles Arik out of his inner imagery of imminent death. At least this time it's a friendly voice, a reassuring one. But not one he wants around just now.

Arik's face just feels numb, but Ealwin looks up and immediately breaks into his customary grin. "Oh, hullo Ainiran! Didn't see you coming."

She chuckles and crouches down beside their table, holding plate and mug in her hands and a cushion squeezed tight under her arm.

"You never do when you sit here, because that's when you want to talk undisturbed. Which means it's bound to be something really interesting. Can I join you?"

Ealwin glances carefully at Arik, who takes a deep breath and gives the barest of nods in response. Then he pats the ground. "Of course! Old friends are always welcome."

While Ainiran makes herself comfortable, Arik's mind works furiously. While he is ready to try to share his dilemma with Ealwin, it is nothing he wishes to admit with Ainiran present, at least not now. She is a mairdin after all and might be one of the girls Ealwin talked about, looking for future sires.

Not that he believes that she would see one in him, nor has he ever thought about her that way. She is somehow but not very pretty, with her faint freckles and upturned nose. She doesn't have the type of body that in other girls, he has to reluctantly admit, he finds arousing. Just a little too short and plump. But her hazel eyes are kind and he always enjoys her company and her razor wits. Still, she is a woman-to-be and as such not one he is prepared to share his qualms with just yet.

Ealwin probably is perceptive enough to understand that the matter is still just between the two of them, but in case, Arik forestalls any possible slip in a flash of quick thinking that he is surprised he manages in his turmoil.

"We were actually talking about you just now. What's so special about the age seventeen? We thought you ought to know."

Ainiran claps her hands in delight and her eyes light up.

"Oh, that's wonderful! I just discussed that with the grandmaster Tee-tee..."

"Who is Tee-tee?" Ealwin interrupts.

"Um..." Ainiran blushes a little. "Well, the grandmaster of treasure and time. Amongst us, we say Tee-tee for short. But please don't use that when you talk to others, it's considered a little..." she waves her hands around.

"Irreverent?" Ealwin suggests.

"The very word," Ainiran agrees, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, there's a whole lot of thought to the crucial ages, as they are called. And it's to do with unbreakable numbers."

"Told you so!" Ealwin grins triumphantly at Arik, then turns to Ainiran again, all agog. "So how is a number unbreakable? Or breakable, for that matter"

Ainiran loses her eyes in some other dimension for a moment, pondering how to best explain it. Then she grabs a handful of dry soil from the ground and spreads it on the table. In the improvised sand tray she draws the two lines for the tips and bases of the fingers and the three for the spaces between the fingers. Then she makes two dots and connects them.

"This is number seventeen, right?"

Two more dots, one of which is next to one of the previous dots, and a line to connect them.

"And this is number thirteen. They are both unbreakable, which means they cannot be broken into smaller parts that are equal. Compare to number fifteen..."

Two more dots and a line, making the three lines look a little like a drawn-out and skewed lightning bolt.

"...which can be broken into three fives..."