Solo A Nod to Courtesy

[Khida]

Fall 72, 514 AV
morning

The morning dawned gray, but a bright sort of gray -- the kind of overcast that did not forebode rain, at least not in the immediate future. Tonight and tomorrow were anyone's guess. All Khida needed was fair weather now, however; tonight and tomorrow could take care of themselves. She could barely make out the sun's direction through the clouds, but the layout of the camp provided a starting reference, and that told her where to look. So informed, she set out into the grass, retracing her steps towards the traps she had laid the night before.

There were some landmarks to be found amidst the grass, at local scale -- the vining bramble with shriveled berries that looked like they had failed before ever ripening; the pockmarks of entrances to burrower tunnels, two of which she had passed between; the gully she had crossed, a rivulet running north-east to south-west, but which turned sharply south just a little further on. What Khida did not expect was not a visual, but a sound -- the sound of a large body moving through the grass, soon accompanied by that of hooves impacting against root-matted earth. She expected it to be a Strider, and was not disappointed; but that she knew the rider, the Kelvic did not anticipate at all.

"A pleasant morning to you, my fine falcon," Jaron Foxwhisper greeted as his horse slowed to a halt, his Pavi accompanied by appropriate and largely familiar signs. "It's a nice surprise to see you! What brings you out this way?"

Hunt, Khida signed in return, before offering her hand to the Strider. The horse whuffed at it and nudged, to which she began scratching above its nose. "I have... trap," she elaborated a moment later. She frowned slightly, picking through her limited vocabulary. "I go to see."

The man signed something which might have been pleased surprise. "I have traps to check as well. Maybe we can go together? We can take you to your traps, and we can catch up along the way?" Something to the effect of you ride and query accompanied his words, underscoring the heart of the offer.

Ride the horse. Khida contemplated the Strider for a long moment, her expression pensive. It was true, she didn't really want to walk so far -- she just hadn't been presented with many other options. While she could, perhaps, ride Dainellas, she mostly thought of the mare as belonging to Hope.

Yes, her hands shaped, before the decision even reached her conscious mind. And with that statement, she was committed; she could not, would not, take it back. No matter how dubious she might be of the choice.

Common | Pavi | someone else

[Khida]

Jaron smiled broadly, pleased approval writ in both gesture and posture alike. As she continued to stand there, regarding the horse, his smile quirked to one side. "Have you ridden double before? Come, I will walk you through it." He dropped down from his mount, beckoning her over to the horse's side. Left side.

"A Drykas... jumps," he said, at the last moment substituting a word he was more sure she would understand. "Something like a bird from its perch, we might say. You've seen Drykas mount, of course. Hands here" -- he mimed the action, bracing his hands against yvas and Strider -- "and we vault up." He paused to scratch under his horse's mane, then flashed her a smile, all gentle humor. "You're not a rider," he continued afterwards, dropping to one knee in the grass, "so I will help you up." He presented interlaced fingers to her, then held them down before himself. "Your left foot goes here, and your hands as mine just were. I will give you a boost" -- he lifted his hands as the word was voiced, perhaps in case its meaning wasn't transparent -- "and you take yourself up the rest of the way, and swing your other leg over the yvas." He smiled encouragingly at the Kelvic... and waited.

Well, that sounded... relatively easy, once she'd parsed through the words, though Khida found herself momentarily distracted by the idea of Drykas flying up from the ground, with Striders for wings. It made a human kind of sense, she supposed, in the same way a grassland could be called sea. She blinked back to the present, finding the man's patient regard still upon her. "Up," she said, half contemplative, half echo. A moment's quick check verified all her things were secured to herself; then the Kelvic boldly stepped forward, and up.

His hands yielded beneath her weight in a way the ground did not; it was... distinctly unsettling, not quite like the bow of a branch... but only for the span of a heartbeat. He lifted; she pushed, like a bird leaving behind the security -- or shackles -- of the earth... only she had arms, themselves bracing her weight against the Strider and providing their own contribution to lift in an altogether different way. Khida almost forgot she was supposed to do things with her legs, too, but with her face full of horsehair, her nose full of Strider scent, their actual purpose asserted itself -- and that purpose was less lift, not at all flight, but much more get on the horse.

Even with aid, it felt a frantic scramble to get all her parts where they needed to be -- her legs spanning the horse's broad back, her torso upright, not leaning too far over nor overcorrecting too far back, above all not falling down or giving in to the urge to actually fly -- all before gravity reasserted its indomitable pull. At the last, Khida steadied herself by expedient of burying her hands in the Strider's mane and holding on tight.

She breathed out a huff when the Drykas swung himself up behind her, mingled relief and a hint of frustration, for his mounting was as agile as anyone could ask, even with her already taking up space. Jaron's chuckle brushed warmly past her ear, and he reached around to tap her fingers. "Go easy there," he instructed, directing her grip to the yvas straps instead; but his Strider took that moment to shuffle herself sideways in a manner Khida could recognize as playful even as it tickled reflexes trained by branches and fickle winds. She held on tighter. The man laughed, and chided the horse, while continuing to be a solid presence at her back, his arms a seeming barrier to either side.

Eventually, Khida relaxed into the situation. Mostly.

Khida space Common | Pavi
other space Common | Pavi

[Khida]

When she seemed settled at last, the Drykas urged his Strider forward, the horse setting a casual pace through the grasses. Her legs reminded her with every breath that horses were uncomfortable things to ride -- they were not at all like sitting on stools or chairs or the beds of wagons -- but there were other things that needed her attention more, and she could set the discomfort aside for a time. The man asked for direction; Khida supplied it by gesture and word, mapping a route from landmark to remembered landmark just as she had been afoot. Her new, higher vantage helped more than it harmed; though the angle of view was different, it was the same manner of difference as that between sky and ground.

Jaron followed her instruction readily enough, or perhaps the Strider did; hard to say who lead and who followed in such a pairing. The Drykas spoke to her as they went, sharing information without expecting her to hold up a full conversation. It was one of the things she liked about the Foxwhisper; he asked many questions at times, but he was also happy to just let her be, undemanding, while essaying his own rambling discourse. He spoke of riding, about balance and grip, about seat, which was apparently not so much a thing as a way of sitting, about the importance of moving with the horse rather than simply being a passenger on its back.

Riding, it seemed, was complicated as well as uncomfortable.

Eventually, the man paused, fingers shaping one moment at the edge of her view. "One of my traps is near here," he said; she sensed rather than saw his nod off towards their right. "Do you mind if we stop there first?"

Stop yes, the Kelvic answered promptly; they had already come much farther than she might have yet, if still on her own two feet. It was only fair she wait for his business. The Drykas signed gratitude and dismounted, also signing for her to stay. Khida was fine with that too; she didn't want to deal with getting on the horse again. Instead, she made the best of her improved view, watching the grasses on their periphery, and most of all observing the man's progress through the stalks. She watched as he knelt, as the shrill shriek of a rabbit heralded its death, as the grasses remained still in the ensuing silence…

…still and quiet, for rather longer than Khida knew it took to untangle a rabbit from a trap. Long enough for her to take note; but not, as the man reemerged at last, quite so long as for her to become very worried for his health. Not when the grasses around them remained at peace. Nonetheless... Problem is? she signed as he stepped up beside his horse.

Problem? Jaron echoed, manifestly startled by her query. He carried a slain rabbit, fat with autumn's bounty, which he slid into a saddlebag; and indeed carried no sign of concern, not even in the lines of his posture. He looked at her, at the horse -- who seemed, perhaps, no less perplexed -- at the grass around them. All well, his fingers elaborated. "What troubles you?"

Khida hesitated briefly, her nebulous concern frayed and fading. She could have answered nothing, could have asserted that it was only a moment's hyperactive worry -- though perhaps not in quite those words. Wait long time, she finally answered, and query-why.

"Oh." Jaron mulled over her answer -- or something -- for several ticks, standing there still beside the horse. "Oh!" He smiled at Khida, and swung himself up onto the yvas behind her. "Let's get ourselves to your traps, and then I'll explain. It'll work better that way," he added by way of assurance -- which only served to mystify Khida. She had expected a trivial answer, had already all but relegated the moment to null importance; what was this that needed detailed explanation?

Fortunately, they had not much farther to go -- not with a horse's legs covering the distance.

Khida space Common | Pavi
other space Common | Pavi

[Khida]

At last, they approached the first of Khida's traps, only a few chimes further down; she had seen some of the same potential in this landscape as her companion. At her signal, the Strider halted, the Drykas neatly hopping down from its back. He observed as Khida did much the same. To dismount was something like mounting in reverse, in that one returned both feet to the side where on started, and came down facing the horse. Beyond that, one need mostly just keep control as the earth asserted its pull -- and landing was something with which the Kelvic had abundant experience.

When she turned to face the man, he merely inclined his head, a flick of one hand gesturing her to lead on.

So she did.

While the Strider grazed on a low rise behind them, Khida led the way down into the depression it framed, broad and shallow, meandering streamed dry in its midst. The stream's path was ill defined, as if it got washed out often -- what she could see of it, anyway, as much was covered by foliage. Rambling blackberries, or something of that sort, seemed particularly fond of this gully; seeing them again made her fingers itch, remembering the scratches she had earned from them yesterday. The fruit itself was long gone from the brambles, and the leaves darkening in anticipation of winter, but it was not the plants themselves for which Khida had come, and stayed; rather, it was for the shadows at their base, the tell-tale gap where something of reasonable size habitually traversed their bounds. It was on the inner side of that hole where Khida had suspended her noose; and from there that she now extricated the slim, thick-furred shape of a weasel, one which had no need for a mercy blade.

Jaron observed all this with a rueful smile. "You're braver than I am," he remarked as she gathered up the trap's cord and turned back, hands smarting with a new layer of thorn tracks. "I saw that hollow, but didn't dare the brambles myself!" He held a hand out, fingers crooked in silent demand; Khida obligingly passed the not yet cooled carcass over to him. He ran his hands over the limp body, smoothing down the thick layers of its disturbed pelt.

"I think, earlier, you wondered when I didn't come immediately back with the rabbit." It wasn't quite pitched as a query, but when he glanced her way, the Kelvic nonetheless nodded. "You remember when we spoke of Caiyha's Cycle, and of the goddess herself, she who made all that lives in the wild?" Khida did, and as he mentioned it, the first glimmers of understanding stirred in her mind. Not true comprehension, but the beginnings of explanation.

"Whenever I take from the Sea," the Drykas continued, his speech measured but not unduly slow; this man who was all but a friend had the sense of Khida's capability in Pavi by now, and of the concepts most likely to bewilder her, "whatever I take, I try always to give back, and to give thanks for what I receive." His free hand shaped a sign something like good action, before drawing his knife and slitting the beast's throat. Turning its belly down and its tail up, he let what blood was still fluid drain out into the soil. "The earth feeds something like we do, on the blood and body of the dead -- plant or animal. This then nourishes --" he paused in his monologue, thought better of the word "-- it is eaten by plants, which are eaten by animals. So by this, all around me benefits at least a little from this death."

He fell silent then, still in a way that revealed his attention gone elsewhere. Gone inward, Khida thought, attending to the deity he… loved. Khida did not understand that love, though she could respect it -- much as she respected but did not understand the goddess herself, that being as far beyond her as the sun and stars in the sky. The man prayed, as he must have prayed over his own earlier kill, and she waited, employing the patience she comprehended far more.

Khida space Common | Pavi
other space Common | Pavi

[Khida]

In due time, the man finished. They shared a moment of affirmed understanding, and a moment of leave-taking afterwards, for here their paths diverged -- he to follow his own line of traps, she to continue with hers. Khida watched the Drykas pick his way back up the slope, rejoining with his Strider; barely a few steps taken and they passed from her view into the grass, becoming a receding sound, and then exiting the range of her senses altogether. She was left alone with the limp carcass of an autumn-plump weasel, and a fresh reminder of how humans complicated the simplest of things.

The Kelvic turned to follow the gully down, gradually moving up the far slope as she went to avoid the denser growth in the channel. It soon joined with a second streambed, this one with a trickle of actual water still flowing down its center. They cut around either side of a small outcropping of stone, and Khida turned away from the streambed to walk around its base. Some enterprising burrowers had made a colony of the small hill, and she had placed yesterday's snares nearly as liberally about it as they had their tunnels.

Unfortunately, each and every one of those traps remained empty. Khida chose to leave the snares where they were; perhaps they would have caught something by evening. Or not. Perhaps the burrows were actually abandoned, or the quarry too observant to be caught by them; or any number of adverse cases might occur. It was simple fact that more of her traps failed than succeeded.

That was but the nature of hunting, by any means.

Khida then headed upstream on the second gully, following its course for several chimes until she came to a broadening of the rivulet into a shallow pool. Scrubby willow bushes with their thin, gray-green leaves grew profusely around the pool. Cautious of her footing, the Kelvic moved down into the brush; yesterday she had learned the hard way to watch her step, after pushing through the shrubbery right into the pool's muddy margins. Today, knowing better, she avoided that fate.

Dense growth such as this posed a nuisance to any seeking passage, but especially larger creatures; to the smaller, it offered potential protected access to the water. To Khida, it also offered an abundance of anchors for her snares, ready materials with which to prop the nooses open, and even the possibility of using the branches to lift her captured prey up away from scavengers -- a trick the Kelvic had yet to master. Indeed, yesterday's experiment in that vein proved to also be empty; and this one, she took down, not expecting it to do any better if left for longer.

But the second trap she had placed was not empty, demonstrated by a weak rustle in the brush as Khida drew near.

Khida space Common | Pavi
other space Common | Pavi

[Khida]

The snare had been hung low between two branches, and it had caught a rabbit by the neck; one of this year's brood, Khida thought from its size. It was well-fed, but something about the proportions of feet and ears still said young to her. It kicked again at the ground, half-glazed eyes showing white at her approach, but hadn't the strength to cause much ruckus -- not when Khida knelt beside it, nor even when she took hold of it and worked it free of the snare. Its pulse pattered beneath her fingers, fur still warm with the vibrancy of life.

Good action replayed itself in her mind's eye, accompanied soon after by gratitude and all it represented. Gratitude was what the hunter gave to her when she aided him, and she to him in the reverse situation; between them, it signified love and appreciation, the depth of the ties that bound them together, their entwined existences. Towards those outside their family, signing gratitude was a matter of politeness, acknowledgment of a beneficial act done. Was that what the Foxwhisper man had meant by good action? Did she owe the goddess of the wilds gratitude for the rabbit in her trap?

Khida didn't understand how that was supposed to work -- rabbits ran, and when a snare was placed across their trail, they ran into it; no divine intervention required. But... even she could say it was unwise to offend a god, in much the same way it was unwise to offend a sleeping bear. If avoiding offense required her gratitude, now that she lived with the Drykas, it was a small thing to give.

The part about sharing with the earth and plants so that more prey might thrive, that made perfect sense, even if the Kelvic would not likely have thought of it herself.

Holding her quarry securely in her hands, Khida made her way back out of the brush, kneeling where the branches didn't get in her way. She pinned the rabbit under one hand, drew her knife with the other, and slit its throat, letting its lifeblood spill out onto the soil. Thank you, she thought, because an expression of gratitude customarily began with those words.

What was she grateful for?

Thank you for this rabbit. For the food it will be. That was the obvious thing, because it lay right here under her hands. For the hunt that keeps us fed and warm and alive. That by which she and her bondmate made their living, whether it provided meat for their stewpot or mizas from the Drykas, as this one would do.

Was there anything else she should be grateful for, here and now? If so, Khida couldn't think of it. Hopefully this was enough.

Khida space Common | Pavi
other space Common | Pavi

[Khida]

Gratitude given, Khida rose again, tying the rabbit carcass to her sash as she had the weasel. She waded back into the brush to reclaim the trap which had been successful, then contemplated the pool and the willows and the gully around them. If she was going to come back this evening to the burrower hill, it would be just as well to come here too -- where she knew prey could be caught.

Besides, wherever there was one rabbit, there would be more.

Taking out a new length of snare-cord, Khida worked her way back in to where the rabbit had been trapped. She knotted a noose in the cord and carefully propped it up on some of the willow's smallest twigs. The other end, she tied firmly around to one of the higher, sturdier branches. Willow was nice for that; its living boughs were springy and hard to break. The Kelvic had also learned -- the hard way -- that anchoring her snares up whenever possible helped keep her quarry from chewing through the cord. It seemed to be just that much harder for them to get their teeth on it.

Which altogether too many still succeeded in doing.

That snare reset, Khida moved around to the other side of the pool, where she could see something more of a trail leading away from the brush. Here, she thought, she would try placing another -- given that two snares offered more chance for success than one alone. Also, she wanted to try the spring-trap again... eventually, it was bound to work.

This trap needed three sticks and two lengths of cord, plus a convenient willow bough that could be bent into the right position. Khida cut suitable sticks first -- a thick forked one for the anchor, a short straight one of even thickness, and a last skinny one. After making the noose in her snare cord, she tied the skinny stick on just above the loop; with the noose set across the trail, she put the stick just beside, upright and with its end pushed just far enough into the soil to stay put. The forked stick, after trimming its ends down to size, she put fork-down in the dirt a little farther away, pushing down firmly to ensure it was well-seated. The straight stick needed to link them all together -- one end tethered to the bent willow bough, the other end braced atop the skinny stick, and its middle caught beneath the fork.

The willow really didn't want to be bent, and it didn't want to stay down either. Its grayish leaves whipped past the Kelvic's face not less than four times. But at the last she got everything balanced, stepped back, and watched it stay there. Only then did Khida tie the loose end of the snare cord to the willow bough, carefully not pulling enough to dislodge that hard-won balance.

Her sense of satisfaction was strong as she retreated from the gully; this had been a good morning for snares, and Khida had confidence this evening would also bear fruit. Even if the burrowers' hill didn't, this would. Surely. Hopefully. She'd just have to find out. For now, it was time to return to Endrykas, and perhaps find another likely place or two to set traps along the way.

Khida only wished a little that she didn't have to walk that distance on her own feet.

Khida space Common | Pavi
other space Common | Pavi

[Jasmine Stormblood]

Very nicely done. If there is anything I missed let me know Khida!

 

Kihda

XP

• Trapping: 3 XP
• Socialization: 3 XP
• Riding- Horse: 2 XP
• Land Navigation: 1 XP
• Rhetoric: 1 XP
• Hunting: 1 XP

Lores

• Riding: mounting feels like a frenzy
• Drykas jump onto a horse with yvas help
• Hunting: will not always catch something
• Trapping: high cords do not get chewed as often