Flashback Captives in the Wild

[Nyaela]

17th Day of Fall, 503 AV

"You're going to the wilds today. You need to learn how to catch something properly before we let you help us catch them."

As if she couldn't catch a proper barbarian captive already! She'd helped her parents countless times before. It was such an outrage! And if that wasn't bad enough, they expected her first catch to be a petching monkey.

Nyaela huffed as she pulled out a rope from her pack, winding it into a circle so the length would be easier to handle. Settling herself against a newer tree (its branches were just out of reach of her fingertips), she took the rope and started to form it into a trap.

First, a loop. She pulled apart the windings and created a loop big enough to encase a small human if she wanted to. Then, the knot; she wrapped the rope around itself and brought it back out in a typical knot, pulling both end apart to check if it would hold.

It did.

That was to be expected, though - this was the easy part of the trap. Standing, she stretched as far as her small body would allow, wrapping the rope across a tree branch so the knot she'd made lay on the ground with rope to spare, then proceeded to tie the rope in a similar manner, grunting with effort as her young legs began to shake with her weight unevenly distributed solely on her toes.

She finished the knot just as her legs gave way, throwing out a hand to keep from slamming her face into the tree. Nyaela looked up, her eyes shaded from the sun by the foliage, and inspected her knot. It looked good, but it was hard to tell from here. The basic idea of the trap was that it was made to yank the unsuspecting animal backward, pulling the knot closed around their foot as their weight pulled against it. At which point Nyaela, sitting up on a higher branch, would be able to jump down and catch the animal. It was why she'd chosen a smaller tree - she wouldn't be able to climb up otherwise.

So, really, if she just pulled the rope here - she grabbed a piece of rope hanging down - it shouldn't budge.

Her green eyes shone in elation as she tugged and the rope held ...

... for a split second before the entire knot slipped apart and the rope coiled around her feet.

Groaning aloud in frustration, she collapsed to the ground again, picked up the rope, and practised the knot sitting down a few more times before it worked. Standing up again, her legs more steady this time, she redid the knot. Correctly, this time -the rope didn't undo itself at her pull. Finally, to hide the rope from the notice of her prey, she took the length of the rope before the loop on the ground and slowly wound it around the tree, slipping it in between natural cracks in the bark so that it would hold in place. Then she left only a tiny bit of rope to snake forward on the ground before ending in the loop that would cause the demise of some creature today.

She stepped back to admire her handiwork, then reached into her bag and dropped a few berries she'd picked off a bush earlier around the end of the rope and turned to the tree.

She'd climbed trees before, but always with a boost from one of her parents. Her short stature didn't help much with trees. She walked around the trunk once more before choosing the partially broken stump of an old branch. She reached up to grab the branch she'd used earlier and pull herself up.

Just in time, too. The stump gave way beneath her and she would have fallen if her fingers hadn't wrapped tightly around the first branch. She lifted her feet higher as her arms started to ache, searching for some purchase in the trunk. Slowly but surely, she pulled herself onto the branch, turning herself over so that she was parallel to the ground and then branch. She slowly sat up, closing her eyes against a wave of nausea as her eyesight adjusted to the height and reached up for the top branch.

Her fingers missed since her eyes were closed and Nyaela almost fell off the first branch too. She immediately lay down on the branch she'd climbed onto, holding the wood tightly. The branch was too low and too new for it to support her weight as well as the weight of another creature, but Nyaela couldn't bring herself to move from the branch to a higher position either. Her fear of heights was always something that ashamed her, but she could never bring herself to find a way to stop being afraid. And telling someone she needed help to get over a fear would be worse than being eaten alive by a Dhani.

So she lay down and waited, finally gathering the courage to open up her eyes and wait for a monkey to chance upon her impromptu trap. The weight problem worried her a little, but she was only a sixteen year-old catching a small monkey. The weight difference couldn't be that much.

[Hope Dawnwhisper]

Isalie was hungry. Having not eaten today, or yesterday, and only morsels the day before! The eight year old was in a substantial amount of pain now. Clutching at her stomach, she slowly staggers through the wooded area, every now and again she stops, leaning against a tree for support.

At one point she turns, so that her back rests against the trunk of the tree. Slowly she slides down, wincing as her loose clothing and skin catches on the bark framing the tree. As she falls into a sitting position, she drags her knees up to rest her chin on. Eventually, after sitting there for a few moments, her hand rubbing fervently against her stomach in a vain attempt to alleviate the pain.

Finally, the eight year old bursts into tears. Though it was, for the most part, silent, the shuddering of her body was a clear sign to any observer that all was not well with the child. The tears that begin to cascade down her cheeks mesh with the dirt and filth that had been collecting there since the last rainfall, which was the only time she really felt clean.

Isalie had been homeless for as long as she could remember. She wasn't stupid, she knew that she would be dead if she hadn't been cared for during the beginning years of her life. But she couldn't remember back then, nor could she remember her parents. The thought of them left her even more upset than she had been before. In the back of her mind, she had always hoped that her parents were dead, rather than having to deal with the idea that she had been abandoned.

After more chimes than she cared to count, she eventually calms down. Still breathing haggardly, and clutching at her stomach, she shakily pushes herself up to standing once again and continues to stumble along through the undergrowth.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spots a bush with some berries growing on it. Dimly, she tries to remember if these ones were edible or poisonous. She found that she didn't care anymore; she would either eat them and survive, satisfying some of her hunger, or she would eat them and poison herself, possibly eating her life of torment. Either way, if she didn't eat she was likely dead within the next few days anyway, if that.

She steps over to the bush, intent on reaching the berries there, so ripe, just waiting to be plucked. She doesn't manage to get to the bush, however. In her obsession to get to the berries, and her starved desperation for food, she forgot to pay attention to everything around her. Feeling something tight wrap around her ankle, she falls to the ground as she steps forward and only falls to the ground. Sobbing once again, she lies there, motionless apart from the cries that shake her body. She was too tired, to weak to find out what had brought her down to the ground. Maybe later. Not now.

[Nyaela]

Nyaela soon lost track of how many chimes had past. The sounds of the jungle, rife with life, were too distracting for her to keep proper count. A fly buzzed angrily in front of her, rising up with the wind only for a loud snap to end the buzz in a squelch as it was caught in the tongue of some beast that lay hidden among the higher branches of the tree.

Her nausea slowly ebbed away and she found it less disconcerting to stare at the ground from this height now. She was considering shifting positions so she would be more comfortable when a snap sounded below her and the grass began to shift.

She heard the creature first - whatever it was, it must have been young or dumb enough to wander Falyndar so noisily without a care. When the sound came again, it was much closer this time. It was obvious whatever it was, it was coming her way. Nyaela gripped the branch tightly and tilted her head so that, while her body was still parallel to the branch, her head was now angled outward, giving her a decent view of the ground beneath her marred only by her straight shoulder length hair as it fell down beside her face.

But she wasn't prepared for what came into her sight a moment later.

Something was walking toward the berry trap Nyaela had set up. Her position put her directly above it, so she couldn't really see more than a headful of dirty curls, but it was obvious from the way it moved that it was humanoid and fully intent on the berries.

Before she could decide what to do, however, the creature set things in motion for Nyaela. It moved past the branch and to the berries, the rope tightening around its ankle and yanking it backward even as it went to get the berries.

And Nyaela, so intent on this creature and its path, was too oblivious to the obvious flaw in her plan; the branch was not strong enough for the combined weight of a Myrian and a little girl. The only warning she got was a loud CRACK! as the branch snapped at the trunk and sent her pitching headfirst into the ground.

A culture bred for war, her Myrian instincts grabbed a hold of her before she smashed into grass unceremoniously, absorbing the impact of the hit with a roll that brought her far enough from the creature to bolt should it realise it was now free.

She came out of the roll in a crouch, turning slowly with her arms held near her face to protect her from the creature as she turned to face it fully, coming to terms with ...

... a snivelling barbarian girl.

Nyaela's green eyes opened wide in shock and she fell backwards onto the grass. Myri was certainly testing her patience - here she was, learning how to train with a wooden sword when Myri offered her a great battle!

And yet Nyaela knew better than to attack the creature. Falyndar was known for its inhospitality. If this thing had survived even a few nights it was worth more than a mere pause.

She stared at the girl, open mouthed for at least a chime before realising what she was doing. Reddening in embarrassment, she grabbed a piece that had split off of the large branch she'd fallen from, holding it in front of her like a spear and challenged the girl.

"Stay there or I swear I'll run you through!" She called aloud in Myrian. Her hands, clenched tightly around the stick, shook slightly. She took a deep breath to calm herself as excitement rose within her. What would her parents say when they saw this? They had been so adamant that she was not ready to capture a slave - she would show them!

A thought came to her, and it made her feel even more dumb. What would a Barbarian know of the Myrian language? "You stay in ... there ... if you ... have know of what good for you." she called out in very bad, halted Common. Her accent slurred the words together, making it even harder to understand.

She was seemingly oblivious to the fact that the girl was just hungry; taught from a young age to be wary of the jungles of Falyndar, the only thing she could think of upon seeing the girl crying was that it was a ploy of some kind. She dropped into a weak battle stance - something she'd learned recently - and prepared for the inevitable outburst.

[Hope Dawnwhisper]

As she hears something creak and begin to snap, Isalie spins, eyes scanning the branches and above her to see where the noise was coming from. It would be just her luck that the tree was above her, and it wasn't worth the risk of not looking, despite her restrained position on the floor. Spotting the branch, with something one top of it, she rolls swiftly to the side. She wasn't directly underneath it, but better to be save than sorry, she thought.

She ducks back into the foliage and covers her head with her arms and hands, hearing rather than seeing the fall. She doesn't have time to even look up again before she feels something sharp against her side, and the harsh voice of a woman, a few years older than herself, maybe. The voice told her to stay still. And she had no wish to be stabbed by a stick. The girl immediately stops crying, fearful that the shudders of her body would get in the way of the sharp thing, accidentally piercing her skin, that or the woman would get irritated by her...

The woman then continues to speak, a jolted language that Isalie didn't understand. We hoped it wasn't something important, that would get her hurt should she not do as told. "What do you want with me?" she asks, also speaking Myrian. She was confused, starving and exhausted. And she didn't understand what was going on.

Still not moving, she wracks her brain for knowledge as to what was happening. For the majority of her life, she avoided being around other people. Her earliest memories had been of scavenging for food out of people's waste, stealing eggs and the like. It hadn't been long before people began to notice her, and the whispers about the filthy street urchin running about and stealing food and clothing ran rife, like wildfire, around the citizens.

Within a few seasons she had been run out of that town. And within a year, she's was run out of the next town. Eventually she decided against being in any town, or around people. Only very rarely did she enter into civilisation, and that was only if she was starving and desperate, and living off the land just wasn't cutting it.

In her time around these places, though, she had seen many people chained or tied up. Many being sold, and others buying them. People sold food and crops all the time. But the idea of selling people as property had always confused the young girl.

At first Isalie thought that the Myrian had been trying to capture some animal in these parts. That made sense, the trap was simply created; it felt like only rope was around her ankle. As she pulled on it, though, the girl realises that the rope was no longer pulled taut. Did that mean she could get away? Shifting, she tests the rope once again, but remembers the Myrian's words. No, better that she didn't move... Hopefully this was all a mistake, and she did want an animal, rather than her. From the woman's words, though, Isalie was beginning to doubt it...