To and Fro (Nanak)

[Tinnok]

To and Fro
5th of Summer, 514 A.V.

It was only a few bells after dawn as the Witch made her way through the canopy. She was glad to have put Zinrah and its blockade behind her, even if part of her chest ached about her final confrontation with her brother. The simple fact that her own baby brother might hate her for all of time felt like a weighted stone in her chest. She could deal with the hatred of anyone and everyone else, of her Mother, her clan, the entirety of Taloba, but to see his face contorted with the emotion, and directing it at her, it was…

She paused halfway out on a branch high up in the canopy, poised for a jump, the ball of her feet balancing carefully on her perch. These thoughts did her no good, replaying the scene over and over again, trying to think of better things to say…it did her no good. Yellow eyes flicked over to the next branch, her backside lowering with her knees, then she sprung off of her perch and sailed through the air, catching onto thing branches which bent under her weight, but alighting on a lower branch on the next tree over, lowering slowly down onto her feet and racing across the new branch, hopping up and grabbing a higher branch and pulling her weight up, surveying her next target.

This was by far the safest way to travel for the half breed, and she was really starting to get the hang of it as well. Her arms and legs grew less sore every day, and she could feel the muscles building, her eyes for the branches that could support her weight and how far she could jump improving marginally with each passing day.

Tinnok glanced up into the sky, one hand over her eyes as Syna glinted down through the thick jungle leaves that shaded the under story. She was making good time, but this stretch of jungle led closer to Taloba than she liked. On her way to the Tear of the Clouds to seek advice from Caiyha, the half breed was eager to put both Zinrah and Taloba behind her.

She took another running leap off of a tree, stumbling on the landing this time and getting a deep nick on her leg for hurrying without properly checking the branches she was landing on, grumbling, Tinnok suddenly froze in mid curse, realizing there was something or someone approaching through the foliage. Her body crouched low, drawing against the trunk of the tree, yellow eyes squinting to focus on whatever it was, all too weary from a season or too of fleeing and hiding.

Word Count443

[Nanak]

The rustling of the plants and ferns as the young male pushed through. His axe hooked inside of his loin cloth and spear in his hand me moved as quietly as he could. Though much to his distain, stealth had not been his thing. A low growl escaped his lips as he stepped out in to the open clearing below two trees. "By Caiyha's grace, why cant I find anything?" he growled in his common voice. He turned his spear over in his hand and looked around. The muscles in his shoulders tensed as he looked around. He felt as if he was being watched but from where?

The young Myrian stepped forward, his feet squishing into the soft jungle floor. He could still feel the eyes of his watcher looking down upon. "Show yourself" he whispered out in his Myrian tongue. The birdsong would sound unfamiliar to anyone who didn't speak it or if an animal was watching him he would get no answer. His hand patted at the axe hooked by his side, he slid behind one of the tree trunks, hopefully out of sight from his shadow. He sank down low, slightly peering around the edge of the trunk he raised his spear ready to strike.

[Tinnok]

She tried to remain as motionless as possible. Hopefully whatever it was would pass around her, be going in an entirely different direction, just move on and leave her be. Ears pricked as she realized it must be bipedal, Myrian. Whoever it was wasn’t doing much to cover up the sounds they made, and her lips curled in distaste, but apart from that, unless they had a stealthy counterpart, most likely this single person was in fact alone.

The half breed told herself to keep still, not to move, just to wait, but her curiosity was so hard to reel in, especially now. If it was in fact only one person, one Myrian she could handle that, even if they did see her. So her neck craned, her body tilted forward ever so slowly, yellow eyes peering down to see a lone male traversing directly beneath her tree. Not only that…he seemed to know she was watching him, or at least…that someone was. She caught the whisper just barely, enough to realize the gist of it. She watched his muscled body tense, prepared to attack around the tree and in that moment the slight absurdity of the encounter got to her, a little snort escaping her throat that would surely direct his attention from around the trunk to up in its branches.

Tinnok clapped a hand over her mouth, then chuckled quietly to herself, well so much for stealth. When she spoke it was just loud enough for Nanak to hear through the clusters of branches above him. “I will show myself if you do not attack. I mean you no harm, though I suspect you may mean me some when you see my face.” Preparing for the inevitable was always prudent for the abomination, and she bent her knees and sprung nimbly down from her current perch to a lower, but sturdier branch, landing on her feet which curled around the bark, one hand clinging to a higher branch, the other hanging loosely by her side. From this height Nank would be able to glimpse a very Myrian shaped and toned female, yet she peered down at him with the eyes of a serpent’s, yellow and slitted, the faint dappled light of Syna making the scales that were her skin glisten faintly in the fresh daylight. The half breed did not draw a weapon, but her body tensed ready for the individual below her to grow hostile.

Word Count408

[Nanak]

Nanak was ready to strike. To drive the head of his spear into what ever had been stalking him. The sound of a laugh had him looking up into the trees. His spear dropped to his side, still clutched tightly in his hand. "I will not attack, I do not know who you are. I don't trust you, but I wont attack unless you give me reason" he said in a rash, slightly broken voice as his common wasn't the strongest. He hadn't much use for it in his home, but his family had spoken it slightly as a child and he managed to pick up a few things.


His eyes scanned the branches for any sort of tell to where she was. He waited for her to emerge, slightly embarrassed that she would have been able to drop on him and kill him if she were truly in the trees. Then she appeared, dropping down into his sight but still out of his reach.

He was surprised she had looked like him and his people. But there was something different about her. Then their eyes locked, and he could tell that she had the eyes of the serpents that his people had fought with. The ones who spilled the blood of his family. His body grew tense but he steered true to his word. His eyes looked over he skin as the light shone upon the scales. "I do not know if I should trust you. Though you look like my people. You clearly are a demon also. What are you? And what reason is there not for me to kill you?" he asked. He stepped into the opening more so that they were standing face to face, or they would be if she was on the ground. With his axe in reach by his side, he turned his spear to the head was pointed at the ground. He stabbed it into the ground and stepped forward. "I have my axe, but as a sign of good fate I shall leave my spear until we part ways. " he said. "Tell me this are you alone?" he asked his eyes scanning the branches for more people.

[Tinnok]

The half breed watched the full blooded Myrian male closely. She noticed his eyes notice hers, the way his body tensed, but followed his promise of non violence. "I will offer you the same courtesy." Tinnok said as she slid down a branch revealing more of her form and making sure to shwo that though she was armed to the teeth, her hands were not near any of her weapons.

"I am half Myrian, half Dhani. There is no reason for you not to kill me." She said simply. If she were standing where he was, she would not see any reason not to kill an abomination of bloodlines such as she, and she would give no lies or pretenses towards some grand reason. Though she bor Caiyha's mark, a strangler fig crawling up her right arm, she would not use her True Mother as an excuse to pardon her own strange and twisted life.

When Nanak placed his spear in the ground, Tinnok removed her bow, scimitar, and spear, placing them in a small pile against the trunk of the tree on a wide enough branch so that she would not fall. Several daggers were still strapped to her back, but this seemed enoug removal of weapons as she dropped down another level of branches, hands clinging to the rough bark and swinging her outward, letting go and tumbling to the lowest branch from which she lowered herself slowly to stand before the Myrian, taking a few hasty steps back in case he decided to pull that spear out of the ground and have done with her this very instant. You can never be too sure about these sorts of things.

"I am alone, as I have been most of my life." She said matter of factly. "I could ask you the same question, and then if you are alone, why." She rubbed her right arm, affording Nanak a glimpse of the intricate Gnosis mark there. "My Mother guides me through the treacherou jungles, but I do not sense that you have such a gift."
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