[Training] Predators (Miharu)

[Siiri]

“Better get used to it then, I do this often!” Siiri returned, cuffing Miharu playfully in the arm. They shared a laugh at her words, their bond letting them feed off the mood of the other. The Myrian sensed that the girl was more sensitive of her emotions than she of hers. The Kelvic was simply built that way. However, she also realized that while Miharu might be receptive to her wants and needs, the girl was still her own person and was thus predisposed to follow her nature. Such had been glaringly obvious in their encounter with the dire jaguar when the girl, in her wolf form, refused to retreat before her. She resolved to address this now before they ran into something more deadly.

Siiri drew closer to the girl, her expression turning serious. “Listen, Miharu, you are still new in this place. Not everything we run into in the jungle will be as easily swayed to flee as that jaguar earlier. Some will be more intelligent, more dangerous. Everything outside the city can and will kill the unsuspecting. You must trust me enough to obey when I tell you to do something. Hesitate and it may cost you your life.” Her voice was soft, lacking anger or reproach, to show that she meant no threat by what she said. She met the girl’s eyes and a haunting image seemed to spring from Miharu’s amber orbs, a suppressed memory called forth by her own words: the death of Shara – Siiri’s reminder of her own hesitation and failure to follow orders all those years ago. She averted her gaze from her bondmate.

“I... do not want to lose another because of that,” she muttered.

The image lingered in Siiri’s sight even when she closed her eyes.

[Miharu Mindi]

Miharu's face grew serious when Siiri's did, and she blushed a little at being reprimanded - but even in this her bondmate was gentle, though she could feel the worry that lay in her heart.

When Siiri turned her face away, Miharu immediately closed the last bit of distance between them and laid a hand on her cheek, gently turning her back. She nuzzled her brow against her bondmate's, her own pale, blood-spattered nose laying aside her dirt-streaked one and uncaring or either.

"I am a wolf," she whispered softly. "You are my bondmate and my alpha. I know that there are dangers here that I do not know, but what I do know is that I will protect you from whatever stands against us. I will not be reckless," she murmured, nuzzling her nose against Siiri's cheek. "I will not be foolish, and I certainly do not wish to be hurt," she chuckled. She lifted her head a little then, so she could meet her gaze. "But I will not leave you to danger unprotected. I will always be at your side when you need me, Siiri. Even if you try to tell yourself you do not." A smile tilted one corner of her mouth, reassuring, comforting, even as her fingertips traced the line of Siiri's cheek.

[Siiri]

“Sometimes,” the Myrian whispered, her breath hot and heavy. “It is I who must protect you.”

Siiri’s eyes flicked to the side for a moment, before meeting Miharu’s gaze once more. She leaned ever so closer, her moves slow and deliberate, until she was awash in the girl’s scent mixed with the smell of their sweat and the metallic tang of the blood of their kills. She took everything in, a heady narcotic for her, as she pressed her body against Miharu’s naked form. Barely clothed herself, Siiri could feel every contour of her bondmate’s body, the smoothness of the skin unsplattered by the blood of the game she had carried.

“Do not resist me,” Siiri breathed. One arm snaked around the Kelvic’s small waist, keeping her steady, while the other tilted the girl’s chin up, exposing her neck. Siiri leaned low, close enough that her lips actually brushed Miharu’s. She was holding her breath, as if afraid to disrupt the moment and break their contact. Time seemed to slow for the both of them. Siiri’s lips parted ever so slightly, her eyelids began to flutter close.

Then there was a quick jerk and suddenly she was away from Miharu. The girl would probably feel sharp pinpricks on the side of her head where the Myrian accidentally pulled some of her hair. Siiri held up her hand, the hand that had nudged Miharu’s chin up, and showed it to her bondmate. A large red spider wiggled in her palm, its long legs trapped between her fingers as well as a few strands of the Kelvic’s blond locks.

“Forgive me. It reacts to sudden movements. I had to be faster,” Siiri said with an embarrassed smile, apologizing for the hairpull. “Not every predator out here is big.” She replaced the spider in the web Miharu had inadvertently disturbed when they arrived in the grove. “Even the small ones can dish out as much pain, if not more. I think this one would break a human’s back from the muscle contortions its poison can induce. But my people... we have developed resistance to it. I just get mild rashes. Others can eat it and only feel a tingle in their tongues.”

The woman shrugged, then began picking up her leathers and donning each piece, but only after thoroughly shaking and inspecting their insides to make sure that no other spider or insect found its way inside. Her atention seemed completely occupied by the task, though it was one she could do in her sleep. Clearly, Siiri was still recovering from the moment of weakness she had displayed earlier. She loathed showing such emotions, even to one who she had developed a bond with like Miharu.

[Miharu Mindi]

Miharu lay compliant in Siiri's arms, holding her breath as her bondmate pulled her close and exposed her throat. It was an especially significant gesture for the wolf-girl, so terrifying that it made her dizzy - for to show someone your throat was the most abject form of subjugation. Almost she jerked away, almost she resisted, the instincts of her entire life nearly too much to allow this.

But she was Kelvic, and Siiri was her bondmate, and so while she fully expected the woman to take her throat in her teeth and shake her as punishment for her disobedience, she closed her eyes and held herself still, the breath frozen in her lungs and her hands trembling where they lay against Siiri's breast.

When she was left suddenly alone, her eyes fluttered open and she stared in surprise at what she was shown, trembling where she stood and unable to stop herself. She was as shaken by her own acquiescence as Siiri was by her show of emotion. When Siiri began shaking out their things, she tip-toed quietly behind her and took her green sarong, stepping into it and tucking it on as she'd been taught.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice meek and small as she stood behind Siiri's shoulder. She didn't know what to do - couldn't promise that she wouldn't do everything in her power to protect her, but was desperate to please her, to make her happy, to ease this awful sadness that she felt in her bondmate's heart. "Please don't be mad at yourself. I'll get better, I'll learn faster how to live here. While you fulfill your duties, I'll spend my time becoming a Myrian. My skin will turn ruddy and my hands will get rough and you won't have to look after me so, I swear," she said, smiling a little to try and lighten the awfulness of whatever was going on unseen between them.

[Siiri]

Her armor firmly in place, Siiri stood up and turned to her bondmate. Her face was composed now; she was in control of her emotions once more. She reached over to cup Miharu’s chin.

“I am not angry. I think you would know if I was,” she said with a smile, to convey a sense of calm to the distressed girl. “There are just some…things I would rather not see repeated. Not with you.” Absently, Siiri undid the knot of Miharu’s sarong and tied it at the back instead so the girl’s skin where blood had dried would not chafe against the cloth. She smoothed the whole thing over once she was done.

"And you’re fine the way you are,” she added. Heaving her kill onto her shoulders, Siiri beckoned for Miharu to follow. “Come on, let’s get these things skinned and ready for the chopping block.”

She went off to the direction of Taloba. Conversation about the awkward moment earlier would have to wait until they reached a more private setting it seemed.

[Miharu Mindi]

An hour later found the two of them dropping their kills on the ground behind the mess hall. Miharu's shoulders ached from carrying that much weight for such a long distance, and she stretched again, long and slow with her arms over her head until she felt her the worst of the knots eased up a little, and she lowered her arms with a sigh.

"Stay here a moment," she said, then took off at a run towards the barracks. She returned a minute later with her pack in her hand, and just collapsed into a seat on the ground next to the dead rodents. "Here," she said, digging through one of the side pockets and pulling out her newest skinning knife. "This'll be easier than your daggers. I've got my old one in here somewhere," she said, digging through the larger part until she managed to drag out the other one, much abused and not nearly as well shaped, but the contours of the handle were familiar to her fingers. "Do you know how to skin?" she asked suddenly, realizing she didn't really know what Siiri was trained in other than warfare - perhaps she usually just dropped them off to be dealt with.

[Siiri]

Siiri dropped her load and pack and cracked her knuckles, hardly winded by the trek back or the weight she had to carry along the way. She was eager to chop up their kills in pieces to share with the rest of the barracks later. But first there was the matter of skinning the beasts, a task she had no experience in. There was always someone else who did that for her, whether it’s the barracks cooks whenever she dropped off kills from her hunts or one of her fangmates when they were in a long assignment out in the field. Her role in handling the beast usually ended once she’s killed it. So she came clean when Miharu asked if she knew anything about skinning animals.

“I – no,” Siiri confessed. She held the knife Miharu handed to her blade up, as if preparing to stab someone up through the chin, or getting ready for a meal. Sometimes, depending on who or what she was pointing the knife to, it was really the same thing for the Myrian woman. “I figured you just stick the pointy end under the skin and pull until you see the meat.” She had picked up a leg of one of the rodents and pantomimed what she had just said. “Sort of like doing potato duty.”

Somehow, it sounded wrong even to her. She turned to Miharu.

“Not the same?”

[Miharu Mindi]

Miharu giggled a little at Siiri's answer, though there was only affection in her voice, nothing unkind. "Not quite the same," she agreed.

She set her own knife down and took Siiri's hand in hers, showing her how to properly hold it. "There, like this," she murmured, glancing up at her with a shy smile. "Now, you start from the belly, like so," she said, positioning the animal so its legs were pointing straight up, stiffened already in the hours since its death, and knelt beside it. "You don't want to cut too deep, or you'll get blood and guts all over the hide. Start here at the throat," she said, demonstrating with a deft hand, "and slice down to the tail. Just enough to cut the skin, not the muscle. It's sort of like drawing an outline of how you want it to come off," she said, showing her bondmate where to make the breaking cut: around the head to meet back at her first incision, up each leg to the middle of the rodent's paw.

"Now it's just a matter of peeling it off. Not the same as a potato, since with a potato you're just trying to get the skin off and it doesn't matter what condition it's in. Here you want to preserve it. That's what the curve is for on the end, see?" she said, worming one hand beneath the skin of the beast's belly and lifting it up a little. "The skin isn't really connected by much of anything, just a sort of membrane like you find around the heart. So you just have to slide the blade along the inside to separate it - but try your best not to cut the hide if you can. It takes a while to get the knack of it, since it's all about pressure," she said, sliding the knife in where her hand had been and carefully smoothing it back and forth between skin and muscle until she was able to peel back the rodent's hide all the way to its leg. "The curve helps catch the bits that connect it, and you just pull forward a little. You'll get the feel for it," she said with a confident smile, nodding for her to try it.

[Siiri]

Siiri enjoyed the smoothness of Miharu's hand as the girl adjusted her grip on the skinning knife. She marveled at the flawlessness of her alabaster skin, so unlike hers, tan and rough and callousy from years of wielding all sorts of weapons. She consoled herself that at least hers still maintained its feminine shape; she knew of other warrioresses who have lost fingers, if not their entire hands, in the countless battles her people waged in the jungle against interlopers, the Dhani, and the wilds in general.

She watched, fascinated, as the Kelvic skillfully parted the rodent's hide from its body without so much as damaging the flesh underneath. Pulled her own kill close to her, Siiri tried to ape her bondmate's actions, piercing the carcass through the neck. That first attempt was already her first mistake, as she plunged the blade in too deep. It was fortunate that the animal's heart had still long ago and no crimson spray splattered at her, only a slight pooling of the blood from the wound. She controlled her movements much more carefully after that, utilizing the blade's sharp tip and keen edge to incise the skin from the muscles beneath.

Siiri's pace was slow, taking minutes on parts where Miharu would skin in seconds, and her work uneven, often carving up meat along with the hide. Sweat poured from her brow, tickling her nose once they've slid down her face, disrupting her concentration and causing her to make even more mistakes. The effort reminded her of when she learned carving in preparation for learning another skill. That one had taken weeks. This one won't take an hour, or at least that's what she hoped.

“So do you tan the hides yourself once you've skinned them or do you sell the hides as is?” she asked the girl conversationally, though she did not take her eyes off her work. She explained that working with leather was one of the crafts Myrians excelled at. “We have good tanners here. You should check them out in the market if you like working on skins. There's also Iami, who does leatherwork in the armory across the training yard, though I think she prefers to use tougher hides than this.”

Siiri held up the rodent hide, finally finished with it. It was quite a mess, truth be told, and the skinless carcass looked like it's been worked on using one of her serrated daggers.

“What do you think?”

[Miharu Mindi]

Miharu finished much sooner that Siiri did, much sooner, but then this was something she'd done her whole life. She thought no less of Siiri because of it, for there were a hundred skills she couldn't do and had no illusions that she might have a knack for them.

So she scooted closer to Siiri, kneeling just to her left and folding her hands in her lap as she watched the woman struggle through the task. Where her bondmate had marveled at Miharu's soft, pale skin, she in turn watched the way Siiri's muscles rippled with each movement, the undeniable strength of her, and felt a flush of pleasure and pride that this amazing woman had chosen her.

When the hide was finally displayed, she scooted forward one last bit so her shoulder just touched her bondmate's and beamed proudly at the work. "That is so much better than the first time I tried to skin. Mine ended up in four different pieces," she giggled, dipping her head to lay a kiss to Siiri's dirt-spattered shoulder. "Very good," she murmured, her smile banking like a warm fire. She smiled more easily this last day or so, had more reason to, had had some of the worst of her fears chased away.

She reached out to touch a fingertip to the bits of flesh that remained on the hide, growing serious again for a moment. "This will have to be scraped; if you leave any meat on it it'll rot and ruin the skin. You can use the same blade for that," she said, taking the skin from the other woman's hands and spreading it out flat on the ground beside them, then taking Siiri's hand in hers once more to shift the grip to the blade instead of the hilt. "Be careful not to cut yourself," she said, a teasing smile playing across her lips as she ccaught Siiri's eyes. "Then just scrap it, like so," she said, her hands guiding as they gently pulled the blade along. "You don't really need any pressure, or you'll cut through the skin. Once it's cleaned, you just have to dry it. I don't tan them," she laughed, releasing the warrior's hands though one of her own rested easily in the small of her bondmate's back, a comfortable, familiar touch. "My nose is too sensitive for the smell of the chemicals. But all you really have to do is dry it. For small skins you can stake them out in the sun, but anything big like this I have to salt before I can pack it up. Then you just get it to a leatherworker as quickly as possible."

Miharu was, perhaps, happier than she'd been since she was s child. It was good to know that there was something she could offer her bondmate in return, some skill she could teach to make up for all she had to learn from this woman to simply live in her world, and that contentment washed across the bond between them as clearly as if she'd been a cat deep in the throes of purring.