[Flashback] Hunting (solo)

[Jet't]

timestamp: Summer 15, 506 AV
location: in the jungle, west of the Kandukta Basin

Syna’s rays barely reached this far into the bottom of the jungle canopy. Her light and warmth were just enough, though, to rouse Jet’t from his sleep. Dark eyes opening to adjust to the new dawn spreading through the trees, he glanced over to see if the others were stirring. Hang, his older sister, had her back to him, her shoulder just visible over the edge of her string hammock. Suri, her twin, had one arm carelessly lolling out of his temporary sleeping accommodation. Both seemed to be lost in the arms of sleep, still. On Jet’t’s other side, Lok, his next youngest brother, had one eyelid drowsily raised. He smiled his ‘up to something’ smile at Jet’t, who asked in a low voice, “Snakes?”

“Tarantula.” Lok replied in a whisper.

Jet’t shook his head at his brother’s mischief, but grinned. It was always good when Hang could be brought down a peg. It was a certainty that Lok had been careful to choose a species that wasn’t particularly venomous. It seemed the big, hairy spiders were much less deadly than the tiny ones you could barely see in the leaf cover. Still, even the big ones bit, and it hurt like hell. In all probability, Hang would simply awake, see that it was one she need not fear, and toss it overboard, to the forest floor some hundred feet below them. On the other hand . . .

Lok reached above his head and plucked a leaf from a branch, and handed it towards Jet’t. Jet’t hesitated. Really, he was growing too old for such games. Lok’s grin was infectious though. The fifteen year old was the constant bane of his older siblings’ existence, especially Hang, and was an almost equal source of annoyance to their younger twin sisters and brother. Jet’t, though, being in the middle as Lok was, had a fluid alliance with the boy. Even having just turned twenty, he could still enjoy a good practical joke. Finally, he took the proffered leaf and rolled a bit in his hammock, to stretch out his arm and gently brush the edge of the leaf down Hang’s leg.

The leaf had barely grazed his sister’s skin, when she said in a low growl. “Don’t bother. I tossed it out already. Now it’s your turn.” The last was said in a raised voice, as Hang spun, knife in hand. With a quick slice and tug of its razor sharp blade, she had cut through the thin, strong cord holding the far end of Jet’s hammock to the branch it was secured to. With her arm already anchored around another branch, as she swung lithely from her own hammock, she performed the same maneuver on Lok’s sleeping accommodation as well.

Jet’t had time to tangle his fingers in the woven netting of his hammock, which now dangled down, attached at only one end to the branch. Hang effortlessly swung over to straddle it, her knife poised over the few knots keeping the bed from falling the hundred feet to the ground. Her face was a black scowl.

“Three years of duty in Taloba, and still you act like a child, Jet’t.” Her voice was as acerbic as her expression. Family pride and respectability were values that she had drummed into her younger siblings' heads, from their birth practically, and usually with her fists. She was an ambitious one, and there was no way the antics of her brothers were going to sully her own reputation.

Jet’t smiled easily up at her. He wasn’t afraid of her, or of falling. She was just such a pain. “Come on – tell the truth. The spider took one look at you and jumped out.”

To his left, and above them, Lok sniggered. Monkey that he was, he had already hauled himself up on a branch some meters above his sister. He was still much lighter, and could reach places she couldn’t hope to anymore. Hang’s eyes lifted to cast her scowl in his direction, and Jet’t used the opportunity to grab for the tree trunk with his toes. Releasing the hammock, he pushed off the trunk with his feet and leapt to a branch two meters below, his hands grasping for purchase and easily finding a secure perch.

Hang’s eyes dropped to her escaped quarry. Her intent had not been to actually send either boy to their death. She merely wanted to make a point, specifically that they had better not mess with her. Far from satisfied, but not wanting to waste any more time on such foolishness, she settled for spitting at Jet’t, though he easily avoided the glob of saliva. With her toe, she reached out to poke Suri, who grunted.

“I’m awake. Are we done playing games? Anyone interested in actually hunting?”

Lok grimaced down at Jet’s, mimicking his oldest brother silently. He gestured in a very rude way, indicating Suri’s proclivity to constantly be kissing a certain part of Hang’s anatomy in order to keep on her good side and thus avoid any hassle. Jet’t nodded and grinned, and gestures flew back and forth between the two younger brothers, none of them complimentary of their older siblings. Hang was already using a rope sling tossed about the huge tree trunk to shimmy her way down to the jungle floor below. Suri was taking a piss off to the side of the tree, the bright gold spray spattering on the leaves as it cascaded down. Jet’t scrambled back up to loosen and retrieve his hammock, shoving it in the leather pouch at his waist.

“Come on.” He said, looking up at Lok. His hands deftly untied his little brother’s hammock and he handed it up to him. “Let’s see if that tapir finally got greedy.”

The snare they had set the evening before had been the third one so far, and the most elaborate. It was one their father had shown Jet’t, saying it was guaranteed to work if one put the time and effort into it that was required. After two easier and unsuccessful attempts to catch the wily animal, Jet’t had decided to give it a go.

Scrambling down out of the tree, all four of them now assembled on solid ground, Hang plucked two slightly toxic fruits from a bush, handing them to Jet’t and Lok, as she took one for herself as well. “Let’s go.” She said curtly, clearly the leader of this little hunting trip and the one giving orders. “And be quiet! I don’t see how you two can still consider farting to be so hilarious.”

Even Suri smirked at that, and the three brothers fell in behind Hang as she strode off down an invisible game trail.