Nature's Bounty

[Avocet Oleander]

Fall 66, 512 The doe's wet nose twitched and fumbled over the pile of red-black berries. Avocet held his breath as he watched it, waiting for an answer to the unspoken proposal. He had chosen them because they looked sort of familiar, but he wasn't stupid enough to eat one to find out. He had only licked it. Finding the sticky skin too bitter for his liking, he had settled for a sketch instead of a snack. When the slender cervid approached, however, he had abandoned his model for the promise of a new one. Stained fingertips held his place in a little brown sketchbook. His lungs began to ache. Hesitating, it raised its eyes and ears to take one last look at the woods around them. He crouched low to the ground, prayed to the shelter of foliage around him and, slowly, opened his journal again. The doe lowered its mouth to feast and Avocet breathed. He put his charcoal piece to the page. His attention darted up every few strokes, quick and eager. Once he caught a flash of white opposite, but it was gone as soon as he thought to notice it. Confused, he paused and frowned at the trees. Red eyes searched the area for the pale anomaly, dreading what she was before he spotted her again, her weapon primed to kill. A cold lump dropped in his gut. Suddenly he stood. "No--wait!"

[Navisya Curare]

"Zlynge!" A dog barked. The deer leapt away from all of the new commotion. It was too late. The arrow was loosed, but not in the direction of its original target. A strange voice had cut through the air, startling Navisya into letting go of her arrow too soon. Who in bloody Hai was out here?! The stupid lummox that he was, Zlynge immediately charged off after it, his bulk dashing fearlessly through low-lying conifer branches. Navisya stood hesitating, and then she looked to the side at her father, wordlessly asking for his counsel. He looked back at her calmly, his features rimmed with newborn, if muted concern. "We had best go see who it is." Tevander chose not to mention what Navisya was fearing. She had just shot an arrow, and the voice had come from the same direction. Nodding, she hurried onward after her dog, moving through the uneven terrain with natural grace and speed. Fallen logs and narrow passes were nothing, passed quickly by a flurry of slender limbs. The Symenestra were native to forests, not caverns. This was the type of environment they had once been built for. Both Navisya and the elder Tevander emerged from the trees to find a dark-haired man with an arrow lodged in his arm. Tevander immediately rushed to him, while Navisya stood in personal horror. The wound really was not all that serious, but she had never brought harm to anyone before. Guilt welled in her, flavored with both fear and pity. "You're fine," Tevander told him preemptively, taking his arm without an invitation. In one swift motion, he snapped off the longer end of the arrow, but left the majority of it lodged in his arm. "Navisya, pull the bandages from my pack." He could have gotten them himself, but he had sensed that someone needed to snap her from her trance. She nodded meekly, then closed the distance and opened the flap of her father's backpack. "I didn't see you," she said quickly, fumbling with the apology. "There is usually no one out here. I'm so sorry. What were… wait, Avocet?"

[Avocet Oleander]

There was a blur of light and pain and movement, and suddenly there was ground beneath him and people around him. When did the forest get so bright? Oh, that's the moon. Avocet felt his throat itch with the end of a scream he hadn't heard. Confusion blinded him like darkness, buffeted by the throbbing distraction of fresh agony. While the pain would not relent, clarity began to settle in as he rose to sit, hissing. He blinked desperately and glared down at the shaft in his arm, finally beginning to understand. And then there were hands on him, snapping the offending arrow in two. He heard voices, one demanding and one apologizing. Familiar. They recognized each other in the same moment. "Navisya," he confirmed with a weak grin. His hand twitched in an attempt to acknowledge her, but fell limp again as the motion agitated his injury. He tipped cringing eyes to the hands that held him and the face they belonged to, summoning the sanity for a straight nod. "Dovna Curare." Avocet had only ever known the man when he had courted his daughter; though the wrong daughter was present, the habit of nervous respect was a hard one to break. His wince grew carefully into a lopsided smile as he answered the woman. "Don't worry about it. Everyone makes mistakes." Then he turned to Tevander, and an attempt at a joke fell feeble on his brow. "What do you think? Am I going to make it?"

[Navisya Curare]

A roll of soft linen was exchanged from one set of ebon claws to another. The worry on Navisya's face was enough to make up for the lack of concern on Tevander's. The older man did not seem calm so much as irked, his features tightened—not unlike the strings upon the neck of a violin. There was movement in him beneath the surface, but past a shroud of visible frustration, his true thoughts were unreadable. "Krovacet," he replied civilly as he began to unroll the gauze. Although time had passed since Avocet courted his youngest daughter, he chose to address the young artist with a degree of familiarity. That was either flattering or unnerving. Curious about this strange commotion, but ever ignorant to the higher functions of Symenestra-kind, Zlynge wandered around the area restlessly, sniffing the ground. Once he came close to investigating this new, familiar stranger, but Tevander curtly hissed at the animal and extinguished the dog's interest. He fell thoughtlessly back into his default nature when above ground—he was searching for more prey. Navisya looked almost offended when Avocet began to joke. She was the one responsible for this, after all, even the victim had been the catalyst to his own predicament. Her sense of humor was not so keen in this moment. "If you are lucky." Tevander, surprisingly, was the better sport. He began to lay bandages down around the offending arrow, which adhered Avocet's sleeve and wrappings to his skin. His ministrations were slow and deliberate, with obvious care and inexperience. "I apologize, but I will not remove the arrow. I lack the skill to do so without causing more harm. Navisya and I shall return you to the Place of Purging." Tevander turned his head a fraction, casting a sideways glance at his daughter. "Gather his things." It was her turn to look frustrated, but she sighed and obeyed the elder Curare's wish. The moment fell quiet as Tevander continued wrapping Avocet's arm. Occasionally he bumped the arrow with one of his knuckles. His long, slender fingers were accustomed to a bowstring before bandages. It required a different brand of finesse. Nonetheless, he failed to look apologetic. "Is this all you came out here to do?" Navisya birthed a new moment with her sudden dialogue. She was still in the process of picking Avocet's materials, and had become distracted by his drawing. Likely she would be carrying his belongings back to Kalinor, with one of his arms put out of use. "It's good, but Winter is approaching, and we can't eat pretty pictures. We'd been tracking that animal for half a mile." Guilt kept the barbs out of her voice. Then it made her repent. "I'm sorry... I don't mean to sound cold, Avocet, but if Lhex demanded I shoot you, I could have asked for a better reason."

[Avocet Oleander]

The old man's demeanor stood like stone against Avocet's buffeting remarks, discouraging frivolity with mere intonation. The artist had managed to forget that dry brevity over these many months, and liked it no better with time. Instead of entertaining Curare, he redirected his attention to his daughter... and was met with similar severity. Jaw tight, he quickly settled for watching the lines of dancing foliage around them. It was all he could do not to flinch at the hunter's handiwork; it seemed that once the tears began they could not be stopped, nor stifled by any distraction. When she addressed him again, the smile that hoped to reply felt even heavier than before. He wheezed a weak laugh. "And since He demanded something be shot, I'm glad it was my arm instead of that Beauty." It was not a word he used lightly and yet he used it often. As important as the Blood, arisen from and colored by it, Beauty was a thing to cherish and preserve. Avocet sought it out and cultivated it where he could, captured it where he could not. It was why he drew. As a knuckle ran beneath his eyes, they wandered from the journal in her hand to the direction in which the doe had long since fled. He might have let them kill it, if he could only have taken a moment longer to honor it. For risk of seeming ungracious, he breathed, "But I won't let either of you take all the credit. I'm the one who chased the poor thing away." With that he fidgeted, making as if to stand. Though he would not actually budge without Tevander's leave, Avocet could not bring himself to directly acknowledge his senior. "Let me draw you," he proposed to Navisya. "And we'll call it even?"