A Meeting of Beasts (Zareah & Nastarai)

[Aiken]

"Thanks," Aiken said, grabbing the squirrel first. He ripped easily through to its innards and took its liver. The flesh on its sides nearly fell away as he picked through the fatless muscle. It was tough muscle, built for climbing and jumping, which meant it would have plenty of protein for Aiken. The rabbit went by just as easily, but with much more leg meat. He felt partly sated, but already felt the small amount of food being digested away.

"I'll be back soon. There's got to be a buck nearby." He shifted, the bright sparkling lights overtaking his form and morphing it into a wolf again. With two long bounds, he was through the bushes and following a trail.

[Nastarai]

Nastarai looked at the pile of fruits, then to the small animals. "Thanks. I need wood to make a fire. Can you go collect wood for me while I gut the fish?" She watched Aiken begin to pick apart a squirrel. She turned away. " You ought to cook things before you eat them, that is disgusting." The man made no comment; he grabbed the rabbit and started in on that.

The girl had scampered off and she turned her attention to Namali. "I'm sorry Namali, tonight certainly didn't go the way I expected." She pulled her bedroll out and spread it over the horse's back as she heard Aiken say something about a buck. A flash of bright light blinded her. "What was that? Namali brayed nervously and danced about for a moment. She turned around, but the adjustment her eyes had made to the dark was gone now. No one responded to her question. She shook her head, waited for her eyes to adjust again, and patted Namali's nose. "Quiet, Nami, hush."

She took out her bag of sugar and took it and two of the fruits down to the river. She washed the fruits off, patted them lightly against her tunic, and dried off her hands. She opened the bag of sugar and rolled the fruits lightly. She went back to Namali and gave her the sweetened fruit and set the other fruit on he ground.

She gathered the fish and took them to the river, gutting them with a suvan. She scooped the innards out, tossing them aside, and rinsed the fish in the river. I wonder who these people are... What is a Kelvic? What happened to that wolf I saw earlier? She took the fish back to where Namali was and set them aside.

[Zareah]

Wood, fire needed wood. She trotted through the trees around the clearing, loathing the way her feet, so large compared to her bestial form, crunched everything up and made such an awful noise, she sounded like one of the large predators that didn‘t need to hide because nothing would attack it. It made her afraid she would be heard, so she stuck close to the clearing while gathering.

Not knowing that fire needed dry wood, she just gathered up whatever fallen branches she saw, soon makeing a game out of gathering the longest ones she could find. She smiled, happy to be helping, before her mind turned to how nice the sweet fish might taste cooked. When she could barely see over her load she noticed she had wandered further away then she had meant to in her search for larger pieces of wood. She picked up her pace and nearly ran back to Nastarai, ignoring the wood scratching up her chest and arms. She felt too vulnerable in this form, too slow, too clumsy, she wasn't used to using it, and by herself she was very much afraid.

As she came into the clearing, she tripped over a tree root that had come partially up out of the ground. Most of her wood went flying, one branch got trapped under her and split her chin as she fell on it. She made a truly awful wavering cry that was more fit to come out of the throat of an animal, it sounded slightly strangled coming from a humans. She whimpered as she pushed up off the log, blood dripping onto the wood to mingle with the blood from the smaller scrapes the wood had made. She looked up at a shocked Konti, eyes tearing slightly from the pain, “I got wood,” She said. The horses nostrils flared and it pranced away from the smell of blood.

[Nastarai]

Nastarai stared at the whimpering child. Namali began prancing nervously as the girl announced that she had retrieved wood.

"Are you okay? It sounded like you might have hurt yourself." She began gathering up the wood, breaking some of the longer branches in half. In a few moments she had a conical structure set up with the thickest pieces inside of the cone. She started putting smaller twigs and such around the log-like pieces. The girl hadn't responded to her question still. She started whimpering again as Nastarai finished setting up the fire.

Unable to see clearly, she continued with the fire. She pulled up handfuls of grass and stuffed them into the cone. After several unsuccessful attempts with the flint and steel and one deep wound on her hand, she managed to get a fire started.

She looked at the girl and saw a nasty wound on her chin and many scrapes and cuts on her arms and chest. Nastarai looked at the fire. It was crude and the grass around it could catch fire at any point. The girl needed help with her wounds, though. And Nastarai needed to take care of the one on her hand as well.

"I need to stay here in case the fire spreads to the grass. Take my waterskin and undo the stopper like this-" she handed the waterskin to the girl and showed her how to take the stopper out, "-then hold it under the water until it feels full. Once it's full, put the stopper back in like this." She replaced the stopper. "Then come back here, okay? I will fix up your chin a little to make it heal better."

[Zareah]

She lay back down, wanting to shift and hole up high in a tree somewhere until she healed. Humans could get wounds in such awkward places, she couldn’t even lick the worst of it clean. She settled for licking the ones on her arms, and found that even her tongue was clumsy in human form. Clumsy and soft, she couldn’t get it into the cuts to clean them out like she could in animal form.

She was on the verge of shifting to find a safe, high place, when she suddenly smelt blood and looked up to see it dripping from the Kontis hand. Too much blood, she felt sure it would attract something unfavorable. Then the fire flared up and stung her eyes, she flinched away from it and whimpered at the pain the sudden movement caused in her chin. She remembered then why she didn’t like fire, she felt the wild energy of it as heat on her skin, it felt like the breath of something that wanted to eat her getting too close. And it did, she knew it did, fire was always hungry.

She was glad when the Konti gave her a task, and an excuse to get away from the hungry, revealing light and she took off with the water pouch as soon as the stopper was put back in it and Nastarai let go of it. Since she hadn’t really watched it took her a few moments to figure out how the stopper worked, but she figured it out and then stuck it underwater and shook it until no more bubbles came out if it, she closed it up still underwater, and then saw movement in her peripheral vision and jerked back, just as a long, thin tentacle swiped at where her hand had been. She started to frown, realizing how careless she had been to lean over the water and let her blood drip into it the way she had, but the movement hurt her chin and the frown turned into a whimper of pain.

She plodded back to Nastarai and gave her the water skin, then plopped down just past the furthest edge of the flickering light circle cast by the sputtering, struggling fire.

[Aiken]

It had taken Aiken almost twenty minutes, but he picked up on the trail of a young buck, just a few years old. It had made the mistake of staying in the softer land, leaving both a physical trail and a scent to go on. He wasn't moving fast either, which gave Aiken another advantage, surprise. "You're mine, Food," he thought, giving his kill a name as it came into view. Food hardly expected a thing, not even looking up from the scattered acorns and grass shoots that was occupying its attention. Aiken crept closer, using what little cover he had to conceal his movements from Food. He saw its antlers twitch up, and begin rotating to look around. He pounced, digging teeth into Food's neck and ripping his windpipe out; Food was dead in seconds. A few minutes of work and Aiken had his fill of deer brain and shoulder. He grabbed the biggest chunk of meat he could and trotted back to the camp. The scent of blood that wasn't deer made him fearful as he got close. It wasn't much further, so he sprinted to the edge of the light.

Everyone seemed to be fine, except for the cat-girl's whimpering. Aiken set the meat down on a log and walked up to her, sniffing her face. She was scraped all over, and her chin had a nice cut on it. Aiken whined once and looked up with sympathy, trying to convey his offer to help clean the wounds.

[Nastarai]

The wolf had returned. Nastarai saw the animal running toward her and the girl. Where is Aiken?? The thought flashed across her mind as she drew her suvai. The wolf dropped it's meat on a log and ventured toward the girl. Nastarai wasn't sure what it was doing. It sniffed her and whimpered. The girl whimpered back at it. Nastarai slowly moved toward the girl, waiting for the inevitable attack.

"Come here, carefully. If it attacks you I'll try to catch it's heart on my suvan."


The girl looked at her and cocked her head. She whimpered again as the movement stretched the skin on her chin and caused her a little more pain.

[Zareah]

"Come here, carefully. If it attacks you I'll try to catch it's heart on my suvan."

She looked at her questioningly,
“Why would you want to hurt our friend?” She asked, utter confusion written plain on her face. She didn't even think that the Konti wouldn't know what a Kelvic was. Something made her assume that there wasn't anything she didn't know, maybe it was just that she was so quiet, with a gentle strength and a certain mysticaliity emanating from her. She looked back at the wolf and held her arms out while lifting her chin slightly, accepting his help to clean her up. A pitiful mewling sound dug its way out of her throat as he began with the worst on her chin, oh it hurt, but she was glad it would get clean and understood that it needed the most attention.

She sat as still as she could while he worked and when he was done she licked his snout and rubbed her cheek against him gratefully. Then she looked back at Nastarai, “Do you need help with your hand?” She asked, it never occurred to her that he might not want to help her too. That she might not want his help was even less likely to her. How else would she get that nasty cut clean?

[Aiken]

Aiken pulled back when he had finished cleaning her cuts. He was glad he couldn't blush in this form. Even if she were barely coming of age, the fact that she was Kelvic provided him with a strange attraction. An equivalent wolf-shrug played off the thought as he laid down and curled up near her feet. He was still tired beyond belief, and needed sleep badly.

A quick look to Nastarai confused him again, as he didn't expect her to have retrieved a weapon, or be bloodied as well. He gave a half whimpered bark, the only way he knew to show that he meant no harm more than he already was. Communicating with words wasn't his current forte, and shifting back to human form was too much yet. His long tongue wiped across his face to clean off most of the still wet blood. A yawn took over the muscles in his face and he put his head to the ground. There was an indecision about whether to stay awake and help the girls, or to rest like he needed. Not like the choice wouldn't soon be made up for him anyway.

[Nastarai]

The wolf didn't seem to be threatening the girl. When it laid beside her, it curled up like a cat and seemed to fall asleep. Nastarai watched warily for a moment. The girl still was unperturbed.

She settled down at the fire, angling herself so she could still see the wolf, just in case. She wasn't sure how to cook the fish in the fire. She stared at the fire. After a minute, she picked through the leftover wood and found three stick with prongs on the end. She broke the longer ones so they were all about the same length, then stabbed them into the moist ground near the fire. She set one longer stick on the prongs and laid two of the fish over the stick.

While the fish cooked, she got her harp out and sat back down by the fire. She watched the flames lick up the logs in the center. Her fingers moved gently against the strings and soft music wrapped around her. She knew somewhere in the back of her head that her eyes were unfocused, but didn't bother to focus.