Flashback Learning the Wild (Ruby)

[Ko Loraynhaus]

43rd of Fall, 510 AV

It wasn't yet chilly when Ko stepped outside, the heat of Alvadas was still beating down on her. Clutching her bag in one hand, she set off. The eighteen year-old wasn't quiet wanting to go to the woods alone. Her father had sobered up, barely, in the past year to teach her some basics, enough that she could provide and survive if she ever had to. Today she wound up near the entrance of the city, not particularly where she wanted to be, but she could walk. Ko wasn't complaining though, as she fell into step along side the newcomers. It was a group of them, t=most looked like they knew each other but there were a few stragglers. Curious as she was, Ko decided to watch these people, as they watched her city.

Peering next to her Ko was mesmerized by some of the people that gaped at a building that wasn't there before. Ko wasn't attempted to be discreet with her onlooking but curiosity never really was. Turning her head fully now, she realized that not all these people were quiet Human. They looked human, walked human, but weren't. Konti. The word came to her as she caught sight of the scales that ran up one girls arm.

She was only a few years younger than Ko, and clearly hiding her scales. And Ko couldn't help but be intrigued at how proper she looked. A shadow of a smile coated her lips and her pose was impeccable but not stiff. Her eyes darted around the city, taking it all in, but not leaving an older woman's side, probably her mother.

"Are you a Konti?" Ko wondered aloud, directing her full attention to the girl now. "A real Konti? That's awesome."

Ko gushed, at the novelty of meeting this creature. She was a bit of a creature herself, strangely muscular with funny looking eyes. But she had grown up as a human, with humans, and being half human herself, she was just as in awe of the unique Humanoid creatures that roamed Mizahar.

[Ruby Majalenka]

Ruby and her mother turned at the same time, like exact copy of each other in different sizes. She looked Ko up and down, starting from her eyes. The midnight blue eyes struck Ruby as anything but a jolly extrovert. Other features were nothing of great interest, none passing the borders Ruby set on individual uniqueness anyway. However she was notably short; Ruby wasn't used to talking without looking up.

When Ruby looked at her mother for permission, she nodded and remarked that she'd be waiting in the Sanity Center.

"Yes, I am." Ruby glanced at the Ko's hunting equipment. "I see that you're about to leave the city. Oh, my name is Ruby. And you are...?"

The city of illusions could always wait. A chance to uncover one's illusions doesn't.

[Ko Loraynhaus]

When the girl replied Ko, smiled. Curiosity always got the best of her but maybe she would make a new friend. Give herself something to do other than try and wake her drunk father up or struggle with tying the small intricate knots for traps that her father taught her. She was also pretty excited, maybe this girl would be a hunter. Ko had no idea if she would be better htan herself, and she would learn things from the younger girl. Or would she get to teach someone something new? Make their visit to Ionu’s great city memorial, if even she had no tricks or illusions up her sleeve.

“I’m Ko.” Ko said simply, “I see you’re new, I’d offer to show you around but I’m sure that by noon it would all be different and you’d probably walk into a river of fire that was just a street minutes before.” Ko looked at the girl wondering how Ruby would take Ko’s ever-confusing city. She didn’t offer a laugh or a smile with the comment. Ruby would have to decide for herself to find Ionu’s tricks as amusing and wonderful or as a threat. Certainly the city can be a dangerous one, more dangerous than most that are so frequented by tourists, but Ko found that the only way to safely wander the streets was to let the illusions in.

Glancing up at the sun, Ko decided she wouldn’t be able to find out as much about this girl as she would have wanted, unless she would come with her. She wasn't going to see much of the city’s grand illusions, but seeing as her mother was going to the sanity center, she wouldn’t miss anything either. Anyway, these travelers had to be here longer than just a day.

[Ruby Majalenka]

Prior to arrival Ruby had heard of the ever-changing layout of the city and even wondered how was a courier's work there. Certainly illusions were an alluring promise of safe adventure in a physical sense. She'd been doing it when inside cities since childhood; imagining stairs as mountains, drains as rivers, and such. Also her mother'd take her out on a tour around the city, but not the outside regarding which her mother wasn't very interested. Therefore the choice was clear.

She gave several nods to not show a cold facade since otherwise her face was completely impassive. "Why don't we head outside ? To wherever you were going, if you don't mind me coming along ? Besides, it is not in my intention to hinder your doings." She tilted her head.

'And it should not be in your plan to harm me also.' she added to herself.

Though she had no suvai of her own, her mother usually allowed Ruby to bear hers upon entering settlements as she deemed danger had passed and the suvai became burden when not a tool. With that in hand and her Konti gift in mind, Ruby felt safe.

[Ko Loraynhaus]

"If you come with me you won't get to see much of the city. I'm going out hunting." Ko let herself smile now. It would be interesting to meet a stranger, even if it was only for a little while. She had so many questions to ask. About everything, Ko herself had never really travelled. She made the trip from Zeltiva when she was younger but she was injured and mostly sick for the boat ride. That wasn't true traveling though, this Konti had probably been so many places. Excited, Ko started walking back the way Ruby had come. It was the shortest way out to the mountains. From the road it was a fifteen or twenty minute walk before it was completely wild, as if civilization didn't exist.

"I hunt with a short bow," Ko held up her weapon, so Ruby could see.[color=#BF0000] "I don't know what you can do with that," [/color]Ko motioned towards the alien weapon. "But you can try my bow if you'd like." Ko decided not to set traps today, they weren't her strong point, and they took to long anyways. Ko wanted to show her new friend all the exciting things of hunting.

[Ruby Majalenka]

Ruby hesitated when offered the bow, partly because she wouldn't be able to reach for the suvai as easily, partly because she'd ridicule herself out of inexperience. Though her mother was a formidable fighter, it was mostly self defense with little stamina involved. She could never picture her mother hunting wild animals with the suvai; traps were used all the time. In a sense it was because her mother had always been a lazy one. Perhaps one day she'd ask to be taught about traps, but today she'd learn the ways of the bow from this... Ko.

"I'd like it if you demonstrate your skills. Only then I'd accept your offer on the bow. The honor of first arrow should always be the host's." Ruby smiled. "Besides, I'm clueless with that contraption." A laughter escaped her.

She groaned to herself at the crudeness of her comedy attempt, not being able to maintain her mother's elegant manner for those three measly sentences.

'Sometimes I feel that my mother is more of a courtesan than a scholar.' she wryly mused to herself.

[Ko Loraynhaus]

Ko didn't know what to say. She wasn't used to talking with people out of the blue. Her damned curiosity was what made her take the girl with her. Ko wanted to know everything about this race. The road was silent as they walked, Ruby's group being the last travelers, there wouldn't be all that many for a while. This was her chance to get some questions out.

"So do most of you travel a lot? Most of the Konti, I mean?" Ko kept her head down as Ruby replied. She tried to remember everything the Konti said. She didn't know how useful it was but it wasn't never bad to learn things, knowing she would run home after this this hunt and tell her father everything she learned. He would laugh at her, but still pat her shoulder in praise and then drown himself again in his Ale, forgetting everything his daughter had learned. It never changed. Ko stopped short, decided she would stay close to the wall, Ko was scared of the wild and she didn't want to take a stranger into the danger with her. It was time to get serious otherwise the two would go home empty handed an Ruby's first day in Alvadas would be poorly disappointing.

"So, in the fall, I like to get boars and turkeys." Ko pulled off her hunting bag and opened it, fiddling around with what she was looking for. "But its always good to set traps to come back to." She pulled out a premade trap. Her father made it, all she had to do was loop it around the right sized tree. Hours of frustration had lead both her father and her to realize traps would always be hard for her. Harder than tracking or a bow at least.

"We want to get a few meters away from the road when we set these," Ko started walking, her voice set straight into a teacher mode. She glanced at Ruby waiting for her to say something, or not, realizing she hadn't let the Konti talk since they stopped, but she looked interested in what Ko was doing.

[Ruby Majalenka]

Sensing that the woman's query was more manneristic than academical, Ruby opted for a concise answer. She wasn't one to talk the ears off someone not an eager student, or at least that was how she excused this behaviour when she wasn't in a pedagogic mood. If the woman wanted more, she could've just asked.

"Not really." she began, without the customary teaching tone. "Most of us usually stay at the Mura Isles, except when looking for mates- breeding mates, yes, or if she's a member of the Opal Order - basically an organization of travelling healers - or aiding in the exportation of goods from Mura."

She didn't even bother explaining The Call or to specify that the goods mentioned were mainly vision water.

"Why turkeys and boars in fall season ? Is there a specific phase the animals went through in that period ? On what principle does the trap work ?"

The last question was delivered with a mixture of curiosity and amusement.

"A few meters ? Wouldn't animals wander away further than that from roads ?"