A Dialogue

FULL TITLE: "A Dialogue Concerning the War Between the Humans and the Natives, with Concern to the Lasting Effect on the Races Known as the Taulcai and the Ororocaa, and Exhibiting the Mannerisms and

“Caa,” the amber-skinned man said to the olive woman twice his height. “The war is over. The Humans have won. It is no longer time for angst and anger, but time for ale and stone throwing… or, in the case of you and the rest of your caa-kind, wine and prayers.”
            “That is easy for you to say,” the woman, the caa, replied with a sigh. “The Taulcai are able to live in their mountainside homes and cities and may choose to stay there for as long as they wish. The Ororocaa do not have such opportunity. We are forced to live in the open, see the desert lands where the Humans have displaced us and to look in the distance and see our holy shrine, nigh-destroyed from the war.”
            Taking a long gulp from his stone mug, the man, a cai in the conversationalists’ tongue, said, “With all due respect, I do not understand why you caa do not simply rebuild your shrine. You have the hands of the Stone Builders at your disposal. It would be a joyous occasion for both of our people. The Ororocaa would have the shrine to their Light Goddess back to full glory and… well, it is no secret that the Taulcai are quite fond of any type of structuring or restructuring.
            With a small smile, the Ororocaa gave the small cai an affectionately gentle pinch on his soft ear, perking it, and his other, up erect. “That is a generous offer, dearest ally; however, it is not one the Ororocaa are willing to accept. The Shrine to the Goddess of Light has stood, untouched for generations upon. It would be a blasphemy to alter it by hand, even to restore it to its original form.”
            The Taulcai’s ears fell in mild dejection as he nodded and said, “The Stone Builders will never understand the caa-kind’s ideas of blasphemy or piety, but we do understand the concept of loyalty.” He sighed, finished off his ale, and added, “Caa, do you think the waterfolk are harried by the war any longer… if, that is, they ever were?”
            “Come now, small one, you know the Adulcai do not possess the intelligence to have the war mean anything to them.”
            “Ah! But do they not live near the territories the Humans claimed as their own? They are aware of the comings and goings of the Humans, yet they do not let it worry them.”
            “It is not at all as simple as that, I’m afraid,” the caa frowned. “The Humans did not betray the Adulcai, nor, may I say, the Taulcai.”
            “Nay, they did not.” The cai toyed with the woc meat on his stone plate before adding, “But, my beautiful caa, that, too is in the past. Yes, the Humans gained a sense of our common language and customs from your folk, and yes, they later used it against us to gain land and power, but, again, it is in the past.
            “The Taulcai have a saying: ‘Nothing lasts forever, not even the walls of a great stone city. So why be bothered by the passing of a pebble?’ That is not to say that the betrayal of the caa-kind nor the war was a pebble. I am simply saying that these are things that have occurred. They are etched in the annals of history. They will not leave there, so let them stay there and not in our hearts.”
            For a long time the caa did not say anything but simply sat there, pensive in her thoughts, her bald brow wrinkling over the sun tattooed upon her forehead. When she finally spoke, it was with a small, vulnerable voice that was so uncommon of the strong-willed and powerful Ororocaa that it made the cai’s ears perk up in surprise.
            “My friend, the Ororocaa will never be able to forget, nor forgive, what the Humans have done to our people. They are monsters, far more ravenous and dangerous than the Ryalcai could ever be. We are forced to live with the knowledge that we, the daughters of the good Goddess of Light, aided them who would rape and destroy the land and lives of so many.” Tears poured from the caa’s brilliant, yellow eyes as she concluded her words.
            “Aw, my dear,” the empathetic Taulcai pulled her to him in a loving embrace. “It is a cruel world that forces the tears from the eyes of the strongest caa. Nay, I imagine that it would be impossible to drop the thoughts of the Humans’ doings from your mind after such that happened. “ He held the caa out by her arms so their eyes locked upon one another. In such a stare he added, “But if you leave here with one thing upon your mind that was not on it before it should be this: the Ororocaa are never to be blamed for what present history has etched into it. They were reaching out to a lost race that showed no signs of danger. It was not the doings of caa-kind that cost the lives of many. It was solely the Humans who are responsible for that.”
            “You are kind, cai,” the Ororocaa whispered with a smile. “There is no question of why our kin have been long been together in alliance.”
            With that, the Ororocaa and the Taulcai ate their meals in the large, stone meeting hall and if they were sitting closer together and their bodies, so different in stature and color, were touching one another in the manner of a loving couple, no one in the hall noticed, save for those two. 

Reviews

[Trigorin]

Not bad, and I think you've done something very nice with the sort of forced antiquity you've employed here. One thing I'd be cautious of, however, is using too many made-up words with no explanations. The reader has no idea, for example, what a 'caa' is, and although we can tell from context that it is a kind of woman, it really doesn't have any meaning to the reader or any sort of emotion because you don't explain it. There's a great deal of merit in both using these words and explaining them, in telling us what you mean by them in a way that we can understand it once and then know exactly what you mean whenever you use the term again, but that just isn't present here.