Closed Pawprints in the Snow (Taylani)

[Isedan Autumnrun]

The serval followed easily enough beside Tay, her stride shortened so that she would not inadvertently pull ahead of her and even rubbing her shoulder against the other from time to time, that happy little purr sounding out.

When they came into sight of the little tent Tay was living in, Issy took a gander at the separation of it from others. Was the human being forced to live separate from the ones who bought her? If that was the case, then why would the male in her life have fetched a child on her? It seemed strange, considering the tight-knit families that Issy had observed so far. She considered asking after getting inside the tent, but chose against it when she went to the center and turned, watching Tay go about lighting the braziers to further heat the interior.

It was a good opportunity to not startle the woman. While the other Syliran had her back to her, the serval let the change sweep over her, a bright but brief flash of colors and lights filled the dim interior, merely an instant in time before the pretty, long-eared cat that had been was now replaced by that of a tall, crop-haired woman with eyes of silver and gold. A small scabbed cut sat beneath her right eye, the bruising on the cheek having turned a muddy yellow and brown. More such bruises, some large, some small, could be seen further along, but the largest and most glaring was on her left side.

Though Issy stood with her arms crossed over her chest for warmth, she couldn't hide the black and purple bruise that stretched along her ribs, a blow that made even yawning a taxing task. "Do you happen to have a blanket, Taylani?" She asked, holding in the shiver that wanted to make her teeth click together. "I don't exactly have fur like this."

[Taylani]

As Taylani turned she had lowered her eyes expecting to see the serval sitting or standing. However her eyes did not see the cat with hits beautiful specked coat, instead there was two legs...that was definitely bare. For a moment Taylani stood a little frozen from surprise, her mouth dropping open for a brief moment and some of the dried meat in her hand fell from her fingers.

It took a few ticks for Taylani to do more then simply stare before Isedan's words and her own instincts leaped forward. "Oh!" Taylani uttered as she moved to action, snatching her cloak from where she had tossed it to light the brazier. Moving toward the other, her eyes taking in her wounds with a furrow and a frown even as she wrapped the cloak around the other. Isedan was taller then even herself, though not by much more then an inch which was not something Taylani was used to from other females. However it meant that the cloak was a fit, but didn't envelope her as it might have if she had been shorter. "Um, one second.." She said, not at all sure how to reconcile the idea that just a few moments ago she had been petting and playing with this woman.

She understood exactly what Kelvics were, but she had never really known any. Or rather she had never known anyone that she knew was one. Considering the other woman was more heavily pregnant then she herself was, she doubted any of her own clothing would fit Isedan, which made her kick herself that she hadn't gone to be re sized by Rue already. However some of Fallan's might.. She moved to the bags once more and dug out a large shirt. Fallan was a bit taller then she and Isedan, but again not by very much, but the shirt would at least provide some cover.

Taylani turned and offered the shirt to Isedan, her blue eyes wide. "Your Kelvic." She stated, not asked, a little blush raising to her cheeks. "I am so sorry about..what I was doing..I thought that you were a cat..." Embarrassment colored her voice, she had no clue what the etiquette was when interacting with a kelvic in their animal form, but surely it wasn't to try and replicate how a boy she had seen interacted with his house cat!

Taylani hadn't dropped the entire meat on the ground, so she offered the rest to the other, "I was planning on cooking a little later..nothing much just a simple soup if you want to stay. I have some cushions.." Again, the cushions were not much but Taylani dragged them out so that the two could sit comfortably enough, and she did slide to the sit on one curling her long legs to the side easily enough. "What happened to you Isedan?"

[Isedan Autumnrun]

"You know, I met a young man in Zeltiva a few springs ago who had that exact look on his face when I first shifted in front of him. I thought his dog was going to attack me for putting a fish back on a stall!" Issy laughed at the memory of her second trip to Zeltiva with Lukyc, when they'd met Ricky and that spoiled pup of his. And had been a fun day, that. "Of course, he didn't look at my face, but then he was just a boy."

Issy pulled the cloak around her once it had been provided and followed Tay to the cushions that had been pulled out. While the human tried to apologize for what they had been doing out in the snow, she just laughed a little, wincing a bit afterwards. "You don't need to apologize for that, Taylani. I invited it. The snows always get me excited; it's my favorite time of year. I just hope I will be able to enjoy it when the snow is thicker." Her smile this time was forced as she sat cross legged on the cushion, her hands holding the cloak tightly to keep herself warm.

Fixing her eyes on Tay fully now, the question of what happened arose. It made her look away and arch her back, her posture hunching inwards. "Resistance is futile when it comes to a man like Cotice. Though I should hardly say 'man'. These others I have met in the city do not seem to fall into the same category as him, but...I suppose my opinion is jaded by what has happened. He found out I am a kelvic, Taylani, that's all. Evidently, he disagreed with this and the chance that..." The shifter's jaw grew tense and her hand brushed over the covered swell of her tum. "...it could be like me. He does not want some short-lived beast to be his heir." Issy rolled her eyes. "Not that I want his kit in the first place."

She sighed and shifted some on the cushion, bare toes wiggling and a hand reaching out for the offered meat at last, taking a bite to replenish some of the energy lost in the shift. "Frankly, this is all that bitch Oryani's fault." Issy was clearly still wound up about the discovery of the Chaktawe's involvement. "Had her bolt not taken Lukyc, I would not be here; I would not have to feel that petcher slithering over me and in me like a damned Dhani; I would not have to suffer his crazed rage. I would be home, in the marshes, with Lukyc, hunting the bogs and doing our part to feed the cities." The kelvic sat sullenly silent for a few moments then, eyes downcast and knuckles white where they held the material.

"I can only pray he endangers me so far that I will abort and be free of his abuse. The man has no honor, Taylani. No honor whatsoever. Would it be to much to ask of Wysar to smite the ugly fool so that I can escape to the freedom stolen from me?"

[Taylani]

Before when Taylani had first met Isedan, Taylani was so wrapped up in her own emotional turmoil to do much more then let the other cry. While it has always been her nature to let the grieving grieve in peace without interference she had felt guilty that she did nothing more then offer not so helpful words of advice. Now she simply felt helpless as the other girl told of what was happening.

Anger at the situation flashed in Taylani's mind, the mere fact that they shared a similar situation in regards to their being in Endrykas and their purpose there was enough to outrage the dancer. The added abuse on top of that, to an already pregnant woman was an outrage that Taylani had trouble containing. "Oh Isedan..." She breathed, her fingers curling and she itched to raise her hands, to move closer and offer comfort to the other woman. However she was not sure how that would be received so she didn't, her face darkening slightly.

In light of Isedan's troubles, Taylani's seemed so small and insignificant. Fallan had stolen her innocence but he had never hurt her, he had forced a child upon her but he was patient and gentle. It was at once what she once hated about him for it had made it impossible to maintain her hate and anger towards him, but also loved because she knew that he had nothing to do with her capture and she would have been sold to someone else had he not purchased her. To someone like Cotice.

A shiver ran through her and she shift so that her seating was closer to the Kelvic woman, offering her silently a shoulder if she should want it but not openly urging her so that it was the other's choice. "There has to be something to be done Isedan. The ..The Drykas, what you carry in your belly, that is what they want..they need. What he is doing to you endangers that..there has to be something." One hand raised, the opposite of the one nearest Isedan, to tuck a strand of red hair behind her ear. "It can't continue..not for the babe's sake but for yours."

[Isedan Autumnrun]

Where overwhelming grief had nearly put the kelvic in the ground last season, the Issy that sat before Tay now was vastly contrasted. While pregnancy altered her body, magnifying the feral elegance of her feline nature, her anger and spite at the situation turned it into a prowling leopard, frothing with rage. Beautiful, but deadly. The sorry from the previous two seasons was still clinging to her breast like a newborn infant might, but it did not consume her anymore. Issy was trying to let her bondmate go; it was just...taking a while.

Discomfort demanded she moved but Issy did not feel it appropriate to sprawl out like she might have wanted to do, part of the mirroring she had begun to take from Lukyc in the last year they'd had together had manifested in the somewhat more human personality as opposed to the fully cat-like perspective. So instead of sprawling, the kelvic got back awkwardly to her feet and stretched, hands on her lower back, then began to walk the tent and a slow, but intense pace.

"The problem is that that man has gone completely mad." She nearly snarled, though it was not directed at the other captive. "And that this which has forced on me, even if I was so lost in my own misery to refuse his advances at the time, is not wanted. What a cruel turn of fate Lhex has put me in." The shifter came to the tent entrance and peeked outside, heavy clumps of snow now covering the ground in the few chimes they'd spent indoors. "The problem is that this fat fool who I would gladly lop off his head to be rid of is the ankal, and I am just a dally for his dissatisfaction. From the little I know of these nomads, ankal is a role of importance. But I have no idea how important."

Her hand smacked at the side of the tent and she turned back towards the human. "Many of the others in the pavilion have begun petitioning him to ease off; and he does so long as they are not around. In the shadow of his private tent, it is not so easy. I thought I could sneak out one night about ten days ago when he had finished his 'ankal duties', as he unfairly calls it, but he caught me when I shifted and I couldn't slip out fast enough to avoid a boot to the side. Thought he broke some ribs that time." The kelvic sighed and tugged the cloak back around her, returning to the cushion to crouch down with uncanny ease beside the other woman, her shoulder resting against her and her eyes on the ground before them both.

"I am happy to give this-" she nodded her head down, "-thing off to a wetnurse and make my escape at the first opportunity. Nyon is taking to some commands finally; I could probably use him as a scent-hound to alert me to danger until we reach a nearby city and get a ship back to Syliras. Be damned to that bloody horse the bastard gave me. The thing bucks me off at every opportunity."

[Taylani]

Taylani let the Kelvic rage without interruption, her hands folded in her lap, clasped so tightly together that the tendons in her hands stood out in a well defined series of webbing. She didn't jump when the other fairly growled, though she did try very hard to keep her gaze on the woman's face. The cloak did nothing to cover the woman when she was stalking about like that, and Taylani was not used to such openness, no matter that she had lived amongst people that seemed to have no such reservations.

She understood the need to vent the anger, the rage, the hatred so that it did not fester in the heart. She understood that need, but this was different for Isedan was in a situation that was more then emotionally taxing. She was a victim, and the more Taylani thought of the injustice, the unfairness of the situation the more her own fires began to rekindle. Fires that had lay smoldering beneath the ashes of her old life, that she had tried to escape began making their appearance within her soul. The quiet anger and the bitterness, and the ugliness of the culture was once more exposed.

"Ankals are the head of the pavilions. They have the last say. However they are not infallible and they are not all powerful." Taylani says softly, recalling conversations with Fallan about his own Ankal -his father. "They are charged to protect their pavilion..and whether or not we are considered apart of their pavilions, the baby is. He is not protecting that baby."

As Isedan settled down against her once more, her shoulder against her side Taylani raises an arm in an effort to wrap it around the Kelvic woman's shoulder. Listening to her talk of planning an escape, Taylani did not tell her about the web. Waisana had foolishly told her about it on the night she had ran, and Fallan had extracted a promise from her not to reveal it ever. He had told her why, and though she had no love of the Drykas she did care much for her own hide, and if she was extremely truthful for Fallan's as well. For he would be subject to the penalty if she broke that law she was sure.

"If that is how you feel, then why wait?" Taylani asked softly, not wanting to cause the woman more pain but wanting to make sure she realized the dangers of leaving this child here alone. "If you wait for the child to be born and then run off..what happens if it is like you? What would Cotice do to it, even though it has no say in the matter of its birth?" Frustration mingled with the anger and the injustice of it all, frustration because Taylani did not have any answers. She did not know how she could fix this, and she doubted she would be able to reason with Cotice if his own pavilion couldn't. "Perhaps if we spoke to Fallan." Taylani suggested hesitantly, "He is with the group that left to find something, I think a herd of bison..but when he returns.."

[Isedan Autumnrun]

"From what little I have gleaned, I understand that much." She replied in reference to the ankal's role in the society. "But one of the youngers in the pavilion tried to explain it to me. I don't know if I understood, but I believe what they described was ostracization if they overthrew Cotice. The pavilion would slowly wither and die, and for that I hate their leader, Corsal and Tudav, and some of the others are not nearly so bad. Tudav's common is wretchid, but Corsal has been trying to find a way around this without actually murdering his brother for such dishonorable behavior and without their family fading into non-existence. He said it would be a stigma on the family if they forcibly removed, but let live, the Ankal...I don't know what that word is, though."

The shifter ran a hand over her eyes and through her hair, as frustrated and troubled as Taylani now felt. When pressed about fleeing, however, Issy looked away and hung her head. "Because except to go north, I do not know where home is. Lukyc and mine's hunting excursions did not bring us into the grasslands; he always said they were too dangerous and that the resident nomads (the Drykas, that is) would immediately escort us out if we did not obtain permission to hunt off the Kabrin. Map's confuse me. Too many squiggles and dots. A good scent trail is a good enough map for me." That was the animal in the kelvic, her natural instincts pulling her in the direction most natural to her design.

The other part of not fleeing was much more simple than not knowing where home was. "Besides, I can't contradict my own sense of self-preservation." Spoken quite matter-of-factly. "I stay because I know there is food and water and shelter. The assaults from Cotice are not preferred, of course, but at least here, for now, I am able to survive." But certainly not live. Cat's weren't meant to be caged, afterall.

"However, I am concerned that my survival instincts will become negated if maternal ones begin to kick in. I can...I don't know, feel it kind of? No, that's not right." She shook her head, not knowing how to explain it and moved on. "It is strange having the need to protect yourself, but likewise protect something that is not yet there. And if it is like me, I am certain Cotice will kill it. If that happens, it might be enough to set the clan against him and force an usurp. If he doesn't-" Again, Issy trailed into silence, closing her eyes in gratitude towards Tay for the comfort of her arm.

But then the young woman said something that startled her. "Fallan?" She said, looking at Tay with wide, surprised eyes. "As in, Fallan Windchaser?" What luck would she have that the drykas she had met a few years back would actually be related to Tay in some fashion! But her excitement quickly faltered and the kelvic's features hardened, her eyes lowering to the unseen baby bump Tay had told her of. "He did that to you? He is one of the captors, too?" She spat the word captors with such venom she could be a dhani.

[Taylani]

Taylani furrows her brow, and her arms move to cross over her breast in a manner that spoke of her frustration. "The pride and honor of the family is more important then the life of a woman and a child that would be Drykas?" She asked, how many times had Fallan and his family drummed into her that Drykas were important then anything else. That we protect the Drykas at all cost. That was not protecting Drykas, them hiding what he was doing to Isedan. Isedan wasn't Drykas but her babe would be if these people had their way and that should be enough. "If they think their family honor is more important then a potential Drykas life then their family deserves to wither and die."

Taylani nodded in response the remark on maternal instinct. "Yes, the maternal instinct is far more .. powerful then I had thought as well. I had made a bargain that I would bear and nurture two children for him. Without attempting to ..harm the child, and without making him force me. " Her words stumbled a little, the humiliation of making such an agreement still raw and fresh enough to make it difficult for her to speak about, more so because after a while she no longer fought the pleasure that he had forced from her as well. "That if I did that for him twice, then he would take me back to Syliras safely, but when I found I was pregnant I couldn't. I can't just leave this child here. It's as much apart of me as it is of him, and it had no say in the conception."

Now whether or not she could love this child remained to be seen, and was something that she secretly worried about. It surprised her when Isedan spoke of Fallan, including his family name. As if she knew him, and it caused her raise her brow in askance, finally looking back at the Kelvic's eyes. "He wasn't the one to capture me. He just happened to be at the ..at the auction. Do you know him?" Her hands fell to cover the ever so slight rise of her belly, an instinctive habit that she had not thought to break. "It could have been worse Isedan. He, he isn't a horrible man. He was messed up by the culture in which he was raised. To be raised that anything is okay as long as it protects and preserves the Drykas, it is little wonder.." She shrugs, Isedan of all of the captives would know that it could have been worse for Taylani. Yet how could Taylani explain her and Fallan's relationship to Isedan? How could Isedan ever understand when she herself didn't? That she had some warm feelings for the man who had raped her for the first half season, rape by coercion rather then force.

[Isedan Autumnrun]

"To them, it seems so. But perhaps it is simpler and I am simply not understanding it." The shifters mind worked on a different level than Tay's, one part associating experiences from the human, and the other from the animal. Her animalistic instincts were always for the stronger, so when things came down to it, if her life was in that much danger, the baby would wind up aborted.

The topic of Fallan's place in Tay's life had her concerned. He was not her captor, but he was the breeder, in essence. The thought made her shudder. Lukyc had made a point of avoiding Ravok during their seasonal excursions just for that reason. He did not want to chance her getting kelvic-napped and sold to the KRI there for breeding and who knows what other kinds of horrible experiments.

Issy turned her eyes longingly to the snow that now accumulated at the base of the tents, drifting up with the wind. "I met Fallan in my second...no third year, I think. He and his horse were in the marshes at the Syliras border, close enough that we could see the swaying grasses but far enough that it would not trouble us. He, Lukyc, and I went hunting for a bit, then ate at our camp. He didn't know Common very well back then. Has he improved any in that time?" She did not show any untoward diskindness of the man; he was simply a figure she had encountered in times past.

[Taylani]

The conversation, the emotions it stirred within the dancer's heart was too close to her before time for her comfort. Taylani had segmented her life in her mind, the before time - the period before her escape- and her now time. Before time was filled with happy memories and thoughts from Syliras but also of her capture and that horribly long season of adjustment. The now time was now, when she was struggling to ignore the before -both happy and the not so pleasant parts- in hopes of gaining some measure of contentment.

So to help focus her thoughts on the now, and not dwell on the bitter hatred that used to threaten to take her very soul, Taylani stood -again with just a little less grace then she is accustomed to- and moved toward the packs once more. "Simple or not, what is right is right, what is wrong is wrong." This was said as she rummaged through the pack, bringing out a large cutting knife and several different roots. Some were tubers, others were orange roots, a couple of potatoes. These are gathered with a kettle and brought back over to the cushion.

"Soup." She said simply before she picked up one of the tubers and the knife. She was not very adept at this sort of thing, she had only a little experience in Syliras with her mother and then just helping Fallan's mother and sister but she knew basically how to use a knife. So she began to slice the tuber into disks, letting the disks fall into the kettle.

"His common is ..understandable to an extent. If you don't mind having to translate, or him referring to himself and to me in third person." Her eyes continued to stay focused on the root, her lower lip bit between her teeth whenever she wasn't speaking. "Fallan. He will know what to do Isedan. If he met you...did he met you...or you the cat?" The thought occurred to her that he might not know Isedan if she was in her cat form, she certainly hadn't made the connection. "If he met you then I know he won't want you to ..stay there."