Closed That’s mine! (Rhu)

[Morgan]

Day 9 of Fall, 515 AV, just after sunset The air was chilly that evening, the last rays of the sun had already disappeared. Morgan was slowly walking through the Bronze woods. She knew this area quite well, as she’d been exploring this part of the forest, which lay directly north from Syliras and west from the north Kabrin road, for some months now. That is to say, only the north area from Syliras to the Pavi lake. She never braved a trip to the lake. She got goose bumps, just thinking about it, the place just seemed scary even to her who was always trying to be brave. At least on the outside. The leaves were crunching slightly under her feet. She stopped for a while and looked around. She was near the Bronze Watchtower now. The leaves were all various colours now that the fall came. Morgan always liked fall the most because of the pretty colours. She planned to make herself a good dinner. She had already gathered a handful of nuts, which grew near her campsite near Sacred Arch Hotspring and which she discovered just by chance. She had hidden them in a small hole in the ground, which she had dug out and then put the nuts in there. She then covered the hole with a flat stone. She hoped that nobody would discover it until she returns. She had also found a bird nest on the way her and in her animal form, she climbed onto the tree and found four eggs there. She took two of them, climbed down, got dressed, stored the eggs in her backpack and continued on her way. Now for the most difficult part: catch some meat. There was supposed to be a rabbit hole near where she was standing right now. Morgan crouched down near a wide treetrunk and slowly, not to disturb anything, she turned around to search for any movement. After couple of minutes she gave up and stood up again. 'Did I miss the hole?' She scratched her head, puzzled. She had planned to find the hole, sit in front of it and wait. That was really the best way, wasn’t it? Well it certainly seemed like it was the best way to her. She didn’t use a bow, she didn’t even have it and she didn’t want to make a trap and then wait somewhere nearby. That was boring. She wanted to catch the animal herself. 'Well, first I have to find the hole,' she thought. The tree on the left looked somewhat familiar to her, although she couldn’t be certain, but she knew that from that certain tree, the hole was few dozen steps to the right. She walked up to the tree, turned right and treaded slowly and carefully forward, until she finally saw what she was looking for – a rabbit hole! There was an opening between the bushes right opposite the hole, not so far from it, but also not too close, so the rabbits inside the hole shouldn’t suspect a thing, hopefully. The rabbits probably ran through the opening everytime they wanted to leave or enter their hole. Morgan went up to the opening as carefully as she could, crouched down on all fours, prepared for a rabbit to come out, not even daring to move or breathe. OOCI know, Morgan is acting silly somewhat here, but she's inexperienced, right? Plus, sorry if there are some badly used tenses. I'm not a native English speaker and sometimes the tenses get confused.

[Rhu]

Rhu had left her house late that day and, sword secured over her shoulders, ventured out into the forest. It was darker than she would have liked, the dimming sun sending out a low amber light that was easily shadowed by the trees, but she still felt immediately at home in the forest, despite it having been far, far too many years since she had last hunted. Long enough, in fact, that she could barely remember it.

She had stayed on the path for most of her trek for safety's sake, and kept her eyes firmly on the ground, scanning for prints. There were some she could recognise, the tiny three-pronged claws that left only delicate indents into the ground were birds, and while they were easy enough to identify, they were only noticeable when she passed a muddy puddle or otherwise-soft area of ground. It was a good thing, she thought, that the ground had yet to go hard and frosty with the winter - after that she would have no chance to hunt, not until the snow fell, at least.

Then, out of the corner of Rhu's eye, she saw another track. It was larger, with each toe spread far from the others. A dog, perhaps. Or a wolf. Moving closer, Rhu crouched down next to the track and placed a careful finger inside it, gently feeling out the depth, as she dimly recalled seeing her mother do in the past. The track felt quite shallow, which she supposed meant the animal was light. Not a wolf, then, she thought, mildly disappointed. A dog, perhaps. Or a fox. Possibly a small wolf, she re-evaluated, and tried to gauge in her head whether a wolf pup could make such a track. It was possible. Anything could, really, as long as it had a centre pad to its foot, and four clawed toes.

She had a quarry at least, and was reasonably certain it wasn't human. Or a bear - and that thought, of fighting a bear and just seeing Hala's face, brought her up short for a moment. If one attacked, could she - No. No, she didn't think she could and it wouldn't (couldn't) come to that. Rhu studied the tracks again, picturing Hala's bear-feet as she did. They had been larger, even when she was just a cub. Five toes, too. This one only had four.

Not a bear then, and it was with no small amount of relief that Rhu adjusted her sword so it was more comfortably arranged against her back, and hastened after the beast, keeping her eyes firmly on the ground to seek out the next set of tracks amidst the undergrowth. Whatever the creature was, it was her dinner now.

Rhu of the Tempered Steel

[Morgan]

Two minutes of waiting brought no results. Morgan, now red-faced, which looked a bit peculiar given her red hair, was fuming silently, still kneeling on her elbows and knees by the opening in the bush opposite the rabbit hole. ‘Come on out you furry little buggers! Come out!’ Nothing. Not even a twitch of a movement. That was weird. She initially thought that they would run away immediately, because she wasn’t that skilled at stealth after all, but it was almost like there was no animal inside. ‘Maybe they are deeper…’ she mused and pushed herself carefully off her elbows, so that she was using her knees as a support only. The Kelvic then looked around, thinking how to continue with this little project. She could explore the hole in her animal form, but then she would have to leave her belongings here and she didn’t want to risk anyone stealing them. There wasn’t any good hiding spot that she could use. After a few moments of weighing her options, Morgan decided to try to drive the rabbits out of their hole with some tool. But first to find some... Ah! There was a thin wooden stick lying around few inches from her left hand, hidden by the leaves. If she stretched out her hand enough, she would surely reach the stick. She grinned. ‘Just you wait. I’m going to get you!’ she thought determinedly. She turned slightly to the left, toward the stick, put her right hand on the ground to get more support and stretched her left hand towards the stick on the ground, still keeping an eye on the rabbit hole. ‘Just…a little….more…’ With a lot of silent puffing and cursing, she finally managed to stretch her fingers enough and grasped the stick in her hand. ‘Ha!’ She silently patted herself on her back. ‘Well done, Morgan!’ She then turned to face the hole again, shuffled closer to the entrance and prepared the stick. “Time to wake up, bunnies.” She whispered cheerfully.

[Rhu]

Technically Rhu was not lost. Considering that the 'technically' hinged entirely on being able to retrace her steps, and her earlier failure to do that with another creature was what had led to her being lost in the first place, she did not consider her chances of returning home before it grew too dark to see particularly encouraging. For a moment, Rhu lifted her eyes from the ground to glare at the rapidly-diminishing sun, and when she lowered them again the paw-prints she had been studying were gone, hidden in a crowd of other tracks.

It didn't matter, though. As much as Rhu would have liked to pretend otherwise, she had no real doubts that the tracks she had been staring at were not the same as the ones she had initially followed. They were a different size, and had slight wrinkles in the soil around the toes where, Rhu assumed, long fur had shifted the soil with each step. Her glare deepened as she frowned down at the intermingled prints, trying to figure out what to do next.

The sensible option was to simply turn around and walk back the way she had come. She hadn't changed direction that many times, and there had been landmarks, unusually shaped trees and little rocks arranged in mounds that she could use to keep herself right. But the thought of returning home empty-handed was a bitter one. Useless she thought. You can't even kill a petching animal. Pathetic. She was almost glad her sisters weren't here to see her (only almost, because she would have given nearly anything to see their smirks and hear their laugher) like this.

Then there was a flurry of motion, of black-brown fur nearly hidden in the darkness, and Rhu's head snapped up, her sword jabbing forwards a moment too late as what she thought was a rabbit ran by. She missed easily and there was a loud, jarring thunk as her weapon smacked dully against the ground. "Skurak!" she yelped, and while she didn't drop her sword she did sheath it briefly to let her aching arms relax.

That rabbit. Rhu turned her head, squinting into the dark where it had disappeared. They moved fast and they were small, where as people, despite being more threatening, were large and slow and so not only were they easier to hit, but there was more of them to stab at. Still, it was a rabbit. She could kill a petching rabbit. Sliding her sword out of the scabbard in a single graceful move, she raised it carefully and quickly headed in the direction it had run.

Thankfully, and somewhat surprisingly considering a rabbit's natural speed, the creature hadn't gone far. It was possible (although Rhu decided to assume otherwise) that it was a different rabbit to the one she had first seen, but either way it was fat and furry and -

And moved too petching fast to catch. Rhu raced after it, and watched, in a short blur of motion too fast for her to stop, as the rabbit bolted out of the undergrowth and into a burrow, streaking straight past a short redhaired girl.

Rhu of the Tempered Steel

[Morgan]

“Where…are….you?” panted Morgan. She was poking furiously into the rabbit den with the stick that she had found earlier for quite some time now. Sweat was beginning to gather on her forehead, although it was quite cold and her cheeks were red from the effort.

“Petch!” she cursed quite loudly now, not caring about the potential rabbits inside the den. She was growing increasingly convinced that it was empty. Irritated, she pulled the stick out of the hole and sat on her heels, thinking how to proceed.

Morgan flinched and turned behind her, when an usual sound echoed through the forest, quite near her. She reached towards her game knife at her belt and took it by the handle. It sounded like something hitting the forest floor. Not footsteps, something different, but Morgan couldn’t discern the sound. She stood up, looking around.

The Kelvic listened hard for a while, frowning, her hand still on the knife, which was really her only way of defending herself. It was feeble, she kept reminding herself to buy some bigger weapon, but she always dismissed her intention later, telling herself that there was no real danger here.

Then there was a sudden noise, stomping of feet and rustling of leaves. Morgan took out her game knife and soon after, a small brown smudge dashed from the bush and under her feet towards the den. “What the…?” she yelped and instinctively threw her knife in the direction of the den, trying to hit the thing, which she assumed was a rabbit. She wasn’t successful of course, the animal was far too quick and disappeared in the den. The knife Morgan had thrown disappeared somewhere deep in the rabbit hole.

Just when the rabbit disappeared in its den, something, or rather someone burst through the bushes, nearly barging into Morgan and knocking her over. The Kelvic stumbled in shock, swayed on her feet, flailed her arms around and finally fell rather comically on her back parts, scraping her elbows on the ground.

Morgan quickly looked up at the person barging into her. It was a dark-haired woman, quite tall with dark skin. She looked out of breath and was holding a sword. Morgan scowled up at the woman. “What do you think you’re doing? You frightened off my food! Now it will be impossible to get it out.” she accused her, unaware that the woman could be dangerous to her. Morgan began to scramble up to her feet while grumbling under her breath.

[Rhu]

Rhu came to a less than graceful stop close to the rabbit's burrow, and stared at the hole, panting hard. Next time, she thought grimly, she would come up with a way of hunting rabbits that did not involve chasing after them. A long-range weapon would be ideal, and Rhu made a mental note to look into getting her hands on one in the near future. She let her sword fall, point landing gently on the ground, and leaned back against a nearby tree and eyed the burrow critically.

Too small to get into. Too small to easily get the rabbit out. If she had a way of making a fire, maybe...but she would have to find a second hole for the rabbit to get out of, and set a trap around the edge. And there might be other ways the rabbit could go. No. As frustrating as it was to admit, that rabbit was gone and not coming back. "Skurak!" she snapped, glaring at the burrow as if strength of anger alone could bring the animal back. She would have kicked something, but the only options were trees and rocks, and angry as Rhu was she still had the common-sense that hitting something that hard was just going to hurt. Instead, she thumped her head back against the tree and closed her eyes.

While she hadn't exactly forgotten the redhead's existence, Rhu had dismissed the girl as unimportant. Short, thin, with the sort of hair nobody with any sense would leave unbound and uncovered - really, did the girl not understand the concept of camouflage - and having just thrown what looked like her only weapon after the escaped rabbit - definitely not the sort of person Rhu considered a threat. At the woman's words, however, Rhu opened one eye and stared thoughtfully down at her. Very far down.

The little kotakbil was accusing her of...something. Had she been paying proper attention, she would have probably understood what the words meant. As it was, Rhu frowned contemplatively, watching the girl scramble on the floor for a moment before reaching over and grabbing one of her arms, yanking her, probably quite a bit too hard, to her feet. She replayed the words once in her head, and took a moment, and the context of what had just happened, to realize their meaning.

Frightened off her food. Her food. Not Rhu's, hers. Apparently sunning herself in the middle of a forest gave the pale redhead claim to any animal that happened to wander over. "Your food?" Rhu said, and didn't even try to keep the amusement out of her voice. She deliberately eyed the girl's belt, where it had held the knife, then looked down the hole the knife had fallen, before meeting the girl's eyes, one eyebrow raised in a contemptuous arch. "How you intend kill it?"

Rhu of the Tempered Steel

[Morgan]

Morgan continued to scramble up, while she watched as the woman dropped her sword and watched the rabbit hole, apparently thinking how to catch the animal inside. ‘Good luck with that.’ Morgan thought smugly. She was beginning to understand what had happened. The woman was chasing the same animal as Morgan. Unfortunately to Morgan, the rabbit was out of its hole the entire time that Morgan had been waiting for it in front of the hole.

Morgan snorted in disbelief and irritation and shook her head. That was just her luck!

The woman wasn’t paying attention to her at all, she appeared to be seething, uttered a word that was probably a curse and she was clearly searching for something to relieve her of her anger. The Kelvic watched her with curiosity.

The woman then suddenly turned and pulled Morgan, none too gently, up to her feet, an act which Morgan ignored and didn’t offer her thanks. The red-head frowned at the woman’s jeering comment and brushed the dirt from her pants before replying. “Yes, my food.” She pointed at her chest to emphasize her words. “How do I catch it now, I have no idea!” she growled, eyeing the hole, trying to come up with a solution.

At woman’s question about her way of killing the animal, she turned slightly pink, hoping the woman didn’t see her previous feeble attempts to pry the non-existent rabbit out of the rabbit hole. She averted her eyes and stuttered, her brilliant idea now seemed silly. “Well, I thought if… I waited here…the rabbit would…” She murmured in embarrassment.

”B-but that’s not the point!” She spluttered as soon as she recovered and tried to returned the jibe to avoid further embarrassement. “Perhaps if you alerted me sooner, we could have caught the rabbit together! But no, you just had to run after it like a madwoman, making a ruckus, so I thought that someone was going to attack me. Stealth is apparently not your forte.” There you have it! Morgan waited with a satisfied expression on her face. She tried not to think about the embarrassing fact that she had spent several chimes waiting in front of an empty den.

[Rhu]

The redhead hadn't understood her. Possibly due to the lack of Rhu's fluency, or more likely because she hadn't really said, but she preferred to think that it was because the girl was stupid. Stupid and weak - Myri knew how she'd been planning on catching that rabbit, because apparently the girl didn't. "My food," she enunciated, and mimicked the girl's gesture, placing her fist over her heart in a brief tap. "I chase. You scare to hole. Your fault my food gone," so saying, Rhu ducked down smoothly to pick her sword back up. She studied the metal for a moment, moving a finicky, careful finger over the blade to remove the specks of dirt and dust. No blood, unfortunately. Still, it wasn't that late yet. There was still time.

A trap would be ideal. Placed over the front of the burrow with some bait and left however long was necessary for the rabbit to nose its way back up. Had Rhu been at home she could have used her knife to make one, but she had yet to get her hands on another kurki. She would have to get one before she tried this again. The girl, at least, had brought a knife, even though she had lost it almost immediately.

At the girl's next words, Rhu laughed aloud, half in astonishment and half in genuine amusement. "If you wait? Rabbit would what? Come to greet and say hello?" she snickered again and sheathed her sword. The girl really was no threat. "Would not work. Rabbit smells, knows danger. Stay away. Should use bait," she grinned, smile sharp and voice mocking. "You know bait? You use to draw rabbit out. Then you know rabbit there before you waste time to wait." It was something she should have done actually. Waited patiently with a lure and a trap, but she hadn't thought of it then. Hopefully the girl wouldn't notice.

Rhu's amusement quickly fled however, and she glared at the girl. "You blame me? You sit outside empty hole and blame me? If you not distract me, rabbit dead." Rhu took a step closer. "Someone attack you, you lose weapon and fall. I attack you, you dead like rabbit." She paused and tilted her head, a new thought occurring to her. She had never killed a person simply to eat them, and had no intention of doing so now, but... "Where I come from, we attack, we kill, we eat. You food like rabbit." That, she thought with satisfaction, would cow the redhead, get an apology out of her, an admittance that the rabbit's escape was her fault, not Rhu's, and when she thought of a way to get the rabbit out the girl would just be happy to leave with her life.

Rhu of the Tempered Steel