Closed Pilgrimage, part III

[Colt]

47th of spring
late morning

He awoke to birdsong.

Which was, in itself, rather surprising; he was accustomed to birds waking up to him. The hunter cracked open an incredulous eye, trying to determine if this was real and not the odd dream that seemed to be leaving him. His sight confirmed what his ears had detected; light hit the outside walls of his tent, casting the interior in a warm glow. He shifted, and then he realized that he was completely bare of clothes—another oddity. He lay on his side, and the half of him that was exposed to air was remarkably chilly. He blinked groggily and surveyed the offended area, and quickly discovered that his usual blankets were not on top of him. Very odd, indeed.

He looked at his bedroll to see what exactly the problem was, and he soon came to realize that he had been sleeping uncovered. The blanket was instead spread upon the ground beside him, gathered so as to suggest a presence, the presence of someone else.

The hunter rolled closer to the inexplicable sleeping pad, staring dumbly for a few moments before the dream came rushing back to him. Outside. He had been outside, asleep. It had been raining, hadn’t it? Then her… the woman. She had slept there.

He continued to stare dumbly. It didn’t make sense, and his now-rested mind churned to try and summon explanations for her existence. Had she been some shade, to appear from the storm and drag him from it, to slumber here and vanish when the sun rose?

Wait… had she vanished?

His limbs filled with a sudden, powerful energy that spurred him from his bed almost violently, not even stopping for his clothes as he tore open the flap of his tent, tripped upon it and tumbled to the ground.

The Drykas grunted, more in annoyance than pain, and tilted his head to regard the land around him. From the bug’s-eye-view, the grass seemed tall as towers, flickering merrily in the wind without concern for the prone man. His tent was oriented towards the center of camp, giving him a generous view of Slither’s tent, the banked firepit, the travois, and the two horses standing nearby. Nothing else.

The darker and leaner of the horses swiveled his ears towards the hunter and nickered in greeting. The man gave a mimicked version of the sound in return, not quite in the position to offer anything more, and turned his attention to the tent flap entwined with his leg. If he intended to search for the woman, this was not the state in which to do it.

[Khida]

He had slept through the dawn, and Khida had left him to do so in peace; if he needed the greater amount of sleep, he would have it. For her part, the Kelvic had quietly excused herself from the tent, then shifted and taken to the air before Syna's light had fully broken across the grasslands. She had lingered there a while, to see if he would be only a little late awakening -- but that time passed, and still he had not stirred. As the sun gradually climbed its way up the dome of the sky, the falcon extended her aerial circuit outwards from the camp, a slow spiral which let her watch for potential hazards as well as prospective prey. The horses grazed beside the camp, and to her uneducated eye seemed content enough with that; they did not need his attention, nor hers. This left Khida with a morning all to herself, and a single prominent task upon her agenda: he might sleep in, but she still desired to feed. Without her partner to scare ground-birds into flight, the peregrine opted for a low glide crisscrossing above the grasses. She flapped from time to time to maintain altitude, pivoting at irregular intervals to survey in another direction. The grasses presented a rather mesmerizing montage of lines as she passed overhead, a frieze of vibrant green and dim shadow through which it was really rather difficult to pick out anything else. But patience in due time netted a reward; that was the underlying lynchpin of any hunt. Khida kept on, patient for long chimes; patient even unto a bell, if she had been counting, but of course she wasn't. The time mattered little here. After a number of false starts and deceptive shadows, she finally found a mottled pattern which unwisely moved as she swooped past, something which went counter to the wind-blown grasses. The falcon quickly pivoted back to come over the space again, intent focus picking out a rounded contour which belonged to no clump of grass. She dove upon the grouse, her quarry freezing altogether too late -- not when the predator might pass it by, but when she was already on the attack. Khida's talons latched onto the ground-bird, the force of her attack bowling its suddenly squawking and active self over. She ignored the spectacle of its flailing wing to bite at its neck, cleanly severing the spine and stilling its struggles. In the sudden cessation of the grouse's raucous protests, the grasslands seemed to her almost deafeningly silent.