A Little On The Shotty Side[[Antar]]

by **Canali** on August 5th, 2011, 11:17 pm

ApprovedAll actions and words preapproved by Antar during creation

Antar pissed Canali off. Though his touch when bandaging her ankle was soft and gentle she still flinched, his words were not. Sure, sure, he had offered something Canali would have jumped at any other occasion, but that was beside the point. Thinking she was going to manipulate him at every turn. Petching idiot! Antar acted like he had the right to treat Canali like a misbehaving delinquent child, or as if he was her father. The last time she had checked, her father was dead and no parental rights had been signed over to another person. Especially not one as infuriating as Antar! His casual backhanded comment about the wrinkles caused a growl to erupt from Canali's pink lips. A shushed one and definitely not heard by him, but a growl in any case. The man seemed to find this whole thing just petching hilarious!

Canali's grey eyes watched as Antar saddled Dawnstride. His movements were too quick for her to really notice what exactly he was he doing, but before she knew it, Antar spun around to face her. The infuriating smirk still covered his mouth as his words rang out between the pair. "C'mon, milady, your chariot awaits." He actually expected her to get on that thing? The beast who was easily as tall as Canali and whose feet could smash her skull in? The walking death trap? Pah. No way. Canali was anything but suicidal. Fear coursed through her veins at just the thought of riding the monster. The mental sight of her falling off of the monster and bashing her skull open on a random rock kept Canali paralyzed.

"No. Absolutely not." Her wide eyes gazed at him, watching as Antar glanced from her to the horse and back to her again. Turning away from her, Canali feared for a moment Antar was just going to ride off without her. However, he crouched down on one knee. What on earth was he doing? Now was not the time to play with dirt!

The words which echoed back at her almost made her laugh, even though she was supposed to be mad at him. "Alright, then. You'll just need to ride on my back. Same as I'd do for any of our group who needed help." The mental picture of Antar trying to piggy back carry Cade a long distance was very humorous. Knowing Cade, he would pull some perverted trick, also, just to make Antar feel uncomfortable. Antar wasn't a pack mule, though. Shaking her head in rejection of the idea, Canali repeated what she had said a few moments earlier. She had already shot him in the groin with a slingshot, using him as a riding horse in a nonsexual way was out of the question. In the sexual way, too, now that she thought about it. In an instant, Noth seemingly stopped pretending to be a dandy and looked back at her. "Look. I promise I won't do anything to harm you, or threaten any part of you in any shape or form. Now, you're hurt; I'm' still hurt from your actions. You've probably even gotten me in trouble with the bosses tomorrow and the only compensation I've had is being able to tease you back earlier. So are you going to still say you don't want help, when it is obvious you need it?"

Grey eyes narrowed. Downward turned lips didn't twitch into a smile and a slow shake of her head signaled her answer to his long winded question. No, she wouldn't say she didn't need help. "I would rather ride the horse," Canali spat.

Antar pushed to his feet and jerked a thumb towards the horse. "If that's the way you want it. Dawnstride should easily carry you. I'm not the greatest rider myself, but I wouldn't want you to fall off and injure your ankle further. Would it be a start to ease your stubbornness if I said I was sorry for yelling at you, if not what I said?" Staring at him like she just couldn’t believe his words, Canali jerked her head away in another direction. To see where Katahr was, of course. He hadn't wandered far and was next to her, still hissing at Antar ferociously. So many things wanted to pop from Canali's mouth; for her to scream at him, to hit him, and to cause him pain. Instead, favoring her sore leg, no harsh words slipped from her mouth. Antar reached up to rub a spot on his chest where Canali figured she had hit him with the slingshot earlier. After taking a drink from a water flask, Antar offered it to Canali. She refused, again. Though she knew keeping fluids in her body was necessary, her stomach churned at the thought of getting on that… That overgrown deer.

"If you're scared of falling off, we can always see if she'll let two people ride so I can ensure you don't keep over. It's only a short distance so you should be fine. Hell, you can even carry the little kitten too if it makes you feel better." Looking more like a scared little kitten herself with large, lashed eyes and the timid little nod, Canali reached down to curl Katahr into her arms. Long, dark hair dangled over her skin and Canali slowly, oh so slowly, made her way over to Antar.

"You'll make sure? That I don't fall?" She looked near tears just at the prospect of riding. Maybe it was just her ankle? A nod came from him and Canali decided to trust his words. Turning towards the… Horse, Canali put Katahr up near the front of the saddle. Out of the way for someone to get on, but in plain view of Canali. "How do I get on?" Childlike, innocent, was her question. With a little help, Canali was settled in the saddle. Sideways, strangely enough. At least she didn't have to try and grip the horse with her sprained ankle. Cuddle Katahr, Antar was soon tucked onto the horse also and they headed back towards camp. The overgrown deer did have a nice, smooth walk, though. It wasn't like Canali would admit that to Antar. She was still sure she was going to die with each step forwards.

Maybe it was the wear of the day catching up to her.
Could have been how warm Antar was.
Or the soft lull of the horse.

But Canali was soon asleep, tucked into Antar.

by **Antar** on August 6th, 2011, 5:07 am

Getting Canali on the horse took a bit of effort to be sure. Noth had had to physically lift the woman by the waist to sit her in the saddle before walking around Dawnstride in order to guide the injured leg over to the other side.

He kept Dawnstride to a walk all through the ride back camp, noting the trip was a balancing act for him with his arms around the injured woman and cat to keep them all in the saddle. He had to grip the horse with his legs and move along with her gait. Letting the passengers flow with the movements. It was an almost pleasant sensation to be riding, even if he was concerned with burdening his helpful steed. But it was quite another thing to him when the injured woman dozed off in his arms.

It was strange that being this close to the sleeping woman, he could feel her heartbeat resonate with each fall and ebb of her breath. Truly it was something Noth had never wanted to experience before. He'd never let a woman sleep beside him. Sure he had done the deed with a few, but there was never one that he didn't think would turn into a viper that would sting him with their fangs like a Sym if they could. But he doubted Canali would have the energy to hurt a fly, at least not when her pan was out of reach. For an instant a glimmer of thought came to mind that she was sleeping like a babe.

Despite her protests at not being childish, the young woman possessed a combination of innocence and youth that would have made any other male of Sunberth either want to protect, or deflower her on the spot. A different sort of draw then a woman like Carina had, but one that was inherent in her actions and her behaviors. If she was faking it: she was good. If she wasn't, it only hinted that in the future when she did realize her abilities she would be truly frightening in the manner she might extort the male populace out of coin or caring just by raising an eyebrow at them.

Just not when she was sleeping like this- but any witless suitor to fall for her would have tried to wake her with a kiss like in some old wive's tale.

Luckily for her, Noth was neither of these two things. He merely viewed his time with her as an amusement, while still willing to let her get beaten, harrassed, harangued and hurt if she chose to do so, so long as she did not endanger the rest of them. That was the difference between him and her accusatory statement of him acting like one of her parents. He would let her learn on her own, yet be there to stop her from dying on her own if he could. All because of his oath to the group. When they arrived back in Sunberth proper, he called another member of the group to help take her from the saddle.

For some odd reason, he was the one tasked with carrying her back to her tent. The cat wasn't too happy about this but was freed from the woman's arms in time to follow, still looking at him crossly. He laid the woman down gently upon her bedroll and held the door open with an an amusing twist of his head, as if he was a manservant holding open a door for royalty as he glanced down at Katahr. The whiskered warrior only deigned to sniff once in his direction before haughtily entering the tent behind its master in order to curl into her side to rest for a long cat nap.

Still with a smile on his face Noth went back to the saddle and unhitched the bag with the hedgehog in it, and opened it up to look at the one prize of the day that would be gutted the next day for the camp's needs. He'd go out alone to see if he could hunt down other quarry in order to bring a little more meat to the stewpot. But he did want to see the beast in question fully so he took it out to lay it gently upon the camp's table.

For a brief instant Noth's vision blurred and the hedgehog appeared to take on a blue shade to its quills and fur and gained a tiny pair of running shoes upon its hind paws. For some reason that made him even more ecstatic the little guy was already dead. However the moment didn't last long, ad his eyes must have been playing tricks on him as the disturbing vision remolded itself back into the form of a normal common everyday hedgehog.

Shaking his head, Noth put the dead creature back in the tarp, tying it up before slinging it over a nearby branch of a tall tree away from predators. He took the time to anchor it to a lower branch with two half hitches before turning back towards his own tent to sleep for the night. But before that happened he traveled out back of the camp, determined to shoot a few arrows at a standing target he had made before out of a wooden post and old armor bits scrounged from the groups first job together. But there was another reason for doing something which he wanted to check.

Controlling his breathing was hard with his hurt shoulder from the rock's impact. But he made every attempt to keep a proper form, his legs shoulder width apart, as he knocked an arrow, leaned into the bow on the draw, and released. He planted three out of seven arrows in the target before biting off a bit off a bit of pain as his shoulder protested the movement. And like any good man, when the pain hit he stopped. He'd have to rest up for a day or so before he could shoot again. His shoulder would demand it. He turned back towards his tent to sleep for the night and pondered the day he had just spent with Canali.

He would have to see how such an interesting person grew to acclamate being in their group, and he truly hoped things would work out. If not... there would at least be some amusing (if painful) times down the road.

~Fin

Skills Request:

Skills evidenced in thread :

by **Cachet** on September 28th, 2011, 2:41 pm

Antar :

Canali :

Conclusion:
I wish Can had killed a few Squirrels…that is all really.