Completed Kindred Spirits

[Khida]

Spring 65, 515 AV
morning

Water enveloped Khida's feet, cold and murky and altogether unexpected. She splashed back out of hte shallow liquid, returning to merely damp earth, the better to study this surprising development. Grass filled her field of view, stalks already waist-high with the rapid growth of spring -- grass just like all the rest of the Sea, just as she expected dry land to look. It was not a place that seemed like it should harbor surface water, and yet it did. The look resembled the marshes of the north, except for the flora being all wrong.

It seemed something had caused the area to flood. So much for placing traps out that way. The rope she used for her snares wouldn't serve in water; it would swell and freeze the slipknots, or perhaps just come loose entirely. Rain was one thing; immersion, another case altogether.

The Kelvic turned away, keeping her course to that which was only muddy, and not flooded outright. She had no particular destination, after all; any direction served so long as she found places to set traps. Or perhaps happened across game she could bring down here and now with the bow -- but in her slow human plodding, not to mention her current ability with the weapon, that was unlikely to happen.

Her thoughts turned forward, her path turned alongside but also away from the flooded earth, her attention scanning for either likely places to put traps or potential dangers, Khida gave no more thought to the new marsh. Not until the strident cry of some beast's alarm reached her ears -- a cry which came from deeper within the flooded area.

Danger, that cry meant, perhaps even danger for her. The Kelvic paused, looked, listened -- and realized, upon hearing a second cry, that she knew which manner of beast made such a call.

Somewhere out there was a horse. A horse in trouble.

Whether predatory or prey or mysterious other, all things came into danger and death at some point. Sometimes one triumphed, and sometimes one died. That was the way of life and of the wild. And yet... For no reason she could put words to, Khida could not simply let this situation be.

It was a horse.

Khida space Common | Pavi
other space Common | Pavi

[Khida]

When she looked towards the source of the cries, shading her eyes against the low sun, Khida could see the horse in the distance -- head and shoulders and the line of its spine all standing out above the grass. It reared up and lashed out with both front hooves, trumpeting another angry call; its target was something low and sleek and hidden from the Kelvic's view. Not glassbeaks, then, but some predator all the same. Predator and prey, Caiyha's Cycle at work.

Caiyha.

I don't know if you want this hunter to take this prey, she thought of the goddess, to the goddess, whose domain she lived by -- whose domain she now meant to impinge upon, in however small a manner. I don't know if you care at all. Certainly all prey contested their predators, as Khida had done in the past and would do again in the future; that was challenge inherent to life. But the Kelvic herself was not prey, not here, not now, not yet -- and the one who was prey, was not her sibling or child or indeed family to any recognizable degree. Involving herself in this would be involving herself in a confrontation otherwise not her concern -- doing so not as predator, or scavenger, or any other role she knew to be found among strangers in the wild.

Khida could not say why she wanted this, why she felt it so imperative to intervene. She could only acknowledge that she did, that she had changed with the passing seasons. In the time before her bond, a horse would have been little more than animated terrain from the perspective of the falcon -- part of the environment, a part which she could not eat and which would not eat her. Its risks and dangers would not have been her risks and dangers, and so altogether immaterial to her affairs. But here and now, with this horse at hazard, this horse who even from a distance seemed to have the profile of a Strider... this horse, she could not simply abandon in its need.

I don't wish to offend, she continued in silence, transfixed between that need and a lingering caution of that nebulous, powerful deity who for all she knew might be watching right now. Or who might be a million miles away, in some other wilderness or in the gods' realm beyond the sky, not invested in this confrontation in the slightest. But... I cannot leave this one be.

A predator was a hazard the Kelvic could contest.

I will not walk away.

Khida space Common | Pavi
other space Common | Pavi

[Khida]

Yet despite that resolution, she did not forge immediately ahead -- not with still more water possibly between herself and the horse. How far did it truly extend? How deep did it pool? What other dangers, the mundane hazards of stumble-inducing stone and cloth-clutching bramble and ankle-breaking hole lay hidden beneath its surface? Khida did not dare charge in on human feet. But would falcon form server her any better against whatever menaced the horse? Khida didn't know. She could only try.

Mud sucked at Khida's feet as she lifted them free of the murk, clinging like glue to the soles of her shoes. She retreated out of the water, welcoming the security of solid ground once more beneath her feet. She retreated several strides more for good measure; wherever the water had come from, there might yet be more, and she hoped to keep her things from getting soaked. For to act as falcon, the Kelvic would have to set them all aside, and did.

Equipped only with what she had been born to, Khida shifted and took to the air. From above, the water's surface sparked back glitters of light, revealing its expanse -- it was vast indeed for a place which had been dry only the day before, a veritable lake. She could see something else moving on the distant horizon, forms which may have been horses or cattle or deer; forms distant enough that even the falcon's eyes saw only fuzzy shape and indistinct color. Nor did she concern herself with those shapes, whatever they might be. She was concerned with what lay right below her -- which, as it turned out, was not a horse.

Not one, but two horses stood amidst the flooded grasses -- the other simply wasn't tall enough to be seen above the swift-growing stalks. A foal, Khida realized, which suggested the first horse was its mother... and illuminated part of what was going on. As the falcon wheeled about, studying the situation below, she realized the foal wasn't moving -- it didn't fidget, it didn't turn, it didn't flee. It just stood in place, head drooping slightly, ears half-heartedly swiveling towards the noises made by its mother and the predators moving through the grass.

The falcon came about again, gliding in low for a better look at the foal. That proved to very nearly be a serious mistake as the mother horse lunged forward, jaws wide. Khida promptly angled herself away and strove for more altitude, equine teeth snapping together behind her tailfeathers; evidently the mother was prepared to see everything as a threat to her child, even a raptor so relatively small as the peregrine. But Khida had seen what she needed to see: the foal's legs appeared shorter than they should be.

Or rather, the foal was stuck in the mud.

The foal could not flee. The mother could not help it -- if she could, they wouldn't still be here, facing this danger -- but she could not abandon it, either. The predators saw opportunity, an opportunity they sought to take advantage of. Khida did not find fault with them; she had done and would do the same. She would have left them to this hunt as well... except that they hunted a horse.

The falcon could not help the foal any more than the elder horse might, not while in feathers. But if she could drive the predators away, make clear to them that this was not the easy prey they desired...

Certainly, that was the first thing she needed to do.

Khida space Common | Pavi
other space Common | Pavi

[Khida]

Khida still hadn't seen the predators.

She could feel them, their alert focus, the deadly intent of their hunt. But right now, at this moment, they did not move that she could see, made no sound that she could hear. The falcon came about yet a third time, high above the grass where she could expect to be beyond any opportunistic leaps; she circled out from the horses, looking for their hunters. Looking for any difference in the motion of the grass, any deviation from the broad pattern of the plains, any glimpse of color or texture that was not foliage.

She observed nothing --

-- and then every sign she could have asked for came all at once.

A blur of brownish-gray darted forward through the grasses, splashing loudly in the shallow water. There was no stealth in its charge, no surprise; and when the horse wheeled to aim a well-placed kick, the predator readily shied off. It proceeded to double back, seeking a way around the guardian's efforts, and in so doing giving Khida her first clear view of the hunter -- the coyote. The horse whuffed at it, stamping a hoof threateningly into the water.

Yet all the noise and display of that charge was also a feint. More subtle motion drew the falcon's eye, tuned as it was to find prey in the grass -- small prey, which disturbed little with its passage. So too with the second hunter, which crept through the water at a stealthy pace, aimed for the opening the horse had left behind. But even stealthy motion disturbed the grasses, a disturbance the falcon saw.

The falcon acted.

Khida dove for the second coyote; not a close-winged, full-speed stoop, but a sharp fall with her wings poised to brake or maneuver at need. She bored straight for the coyote, who did not expect an attack from above, not here and now; the only maneuvering she proved to need was to was fine-tune her trajectory. She aimed herself for its back, talons extended to rake; by the time the predator realized it also faced danger from the sky, she was nearly upon it. The falcon's talons tore through fur and skin across its shoulders, the coyote yelping and whipping around in alarm; its jaws snapped towards her, but momentum had already carried the raptor well beyond its striking range, and the coyote bit only air.

Sweeping upwards, Khida came back around to survey the rest of the scene. The older horse was half-turned back towards her, clearly torn between defending against the coyote in front of it, attacking the coyote which had slipped around behind... and maybe taking its umbrage out on the falcon, too, for good measure. It trumpeted an angry, strident neigh, bringing both forehooves down in a rather impressive splash, and lunged just aggressively enough at the decoy coyote to make it fade back into the surrounding grass.

Both coyotes retreated, presumably to reconsider the situation, and that was the immediate result Khida had needed to achieve.

Now she just needed to make them go away for good.

Khida space Common | Pavi
other space Common | Pavi

[Khida]

One chime passed. Two. More. Below, the mother horse stood yet alert, ears swiveling towards every slight sound, every whisper and rustle, every splash of water. Above, the falcon empathized; without knowing where to look, one could only try to look everywhere. She, too, tried; she passed over the grasses one way, then again from another angle, seeking the insights of different perspectives. But that everywhere proved all the same: no matter the angle, Khida saw only grass and horse.

The coyotes did not return. Had they in fact moved on altogether?

Khida did not trust their absence. Her instincts, her own experience as a hunter, her worry as a guardian, insisted that they must be lying in wait. Must. But -- she did not know. She could not be certain... and the longer she waited, the more at-risk the foal was from other hazards. Mud was wet. Water was cold. Cold... drained, and it did not take much knowledge of horses to see that the foal was weary. If she freed it later, if she waited for however long it took to be certain the predators had gone -- would it be too weary then?

That it might be too weary now, Khida refused to contemplate.

The other facet of her quandary was that predators other than coyotes roamed the Sea. She could not say exactly what kinds laid claim to territory here, but it was certain there were more -- wolves, lions, perhaps even glassbeaks. It was only a matter of time before they appeared... and as with the foal's well-being, Khida knew not what interval that might be.

All told, the Kelvic needed to act -- sooner rather than later, before any of the figurative hourglasses ran out.

So resolved, Khida gave the area one last sweep, searching for any glimpse of coyote fur... any trail departing. Inevitably, she found none. Not without some reluctance, the falcon returned to earth, shifting back to human beside her pile of human things. She hesitated there, considering the equipment -- would any be of aid? Maybe the knife, as her human form was distinctly lacking in weaponry. The bow... would not help her if the coyotes came back; they were quick and the distance would be short. Besides, she was supposed to keep it out of the wet. The clothes... wouldn't keep her warm in the mud, but they were something teeth could close upon without doing harm, if it came to that. Not armor, not so good as all that... but still better than bare skin.

Quickly, Khida dressed... tucked the knife into her sash... and essayed back out into the murk. It was cold and gluey and soon reached up to her ankles, thinner than mud but murkier than water should be. It sucked at her shoes, grasp becoming ever more insistent until one slipped off altogether, her foot landing directly in the gooey ooze.

Khida kept walking; it was just a shoe.

Khida space Common | Pavi
other space Common | Pavi

[Khida]

With and without shoe, her progress was slow, cautious of both her footing and of the horse ahead -- for she definitely had the mother's attention, and that attention was... not exactly welcoming. When it seemed like the horse was running out of tolerance, was nearly fit to charge, Khida halted. She spread her fingers side and low. Greeting, she signed, slow and definite and precise -- as precise as she could be. Help, friend, good.

The horse didn't seem much convinced by the signs, if she even understood them, but she didn't evince aggression either. Not, at least, that Khida could discern.

Help, Khida signed again, and stepped forward. One pace. Two paces. Five paces.

The horse lunged.

With who knew how many hundred pounds of horse charging towards her, Khida did the only sane thing she could -- she shifted. A human yelp broke and reformed into a falcon's shriek, wings slipping free of the wrap-shirt as all her human things fell aside. The horse's teeth closed in air and the edge of cloth, while the falcon reached for altitude, voicing a strident scold all the while.

Gray launched itself across intervening space.

The foal, knowing death when its harbinger arrived, screamed shrill panic.

The falcon fell.

There was almost no velocity to the dive; she had no altitude worth the word and even worse angle of attack. But desperation drove. Desperation sank talons into the coyote's haunch, wings batting the muzzle which snapped in angry retaliation. Desperation shrieked fury and clung while the canid whirled and bucked, distracted from its prey by a far more urgent concern. But even desperation, in the end, was forced to let go, the falcon cast off into grasses which hissed and crackled in her wake.

She hit the mud, wet and sticky and shockingly cold where it seeped past her feathers -- which was everywhere. Wings flailed; mud splattered; but the falcon remained firmly ensconced in the mud, despite all efforts to become otherwise.

Grass rustled, a shape sleek and dark and quick looming in Khida's perception.

She could not fly.

She was stuck on the ground!

Fur collided with mud-covered skin, fur that was warm and rough and oily, fur that came accompanied by a white-hot shock of pain. Fur that retreated a moment later, leaving Khida sprawled in the mud, face averted and arm raised as the only shield she could deploy. She blinked past the mud and looked up to see a rather unsure-looking coyote, perhaps surprised that the bird it had thought grounded was not a bird anymore.

Khida could see the moment it decided a lone human would do just as well.

She didn't even have the knife.

...but she was not, in truth, alone.

A vast, looming shadow appeared above the grasses; a shadow which planted a hoof on the coyote's side, evoking a resounding thunk that seemed to echo despite the total lack of surrounding walls. The canid yelped and, thrown aside, disappeared from Khida's view; she could see nothing but grass and the great dark bulk of the horse. She could only listen to a rustling susurrus which made her skin crawl and her heart jump, certain that every bit of it was made by predator feet coming back for her.

Above her, the horse stood sentry, its tail swishing animatedly. After a short while, the rustling faded, attenuating into the distance; after a longer while, the horse whuffed and angled its head, seeming to peer down at her out of one dark eye.

Thank -- she signed, but not with the left hand; her left forearm spat painful fire. Thank you, she finished with right hand only, the gesture poorly cast but oh so profoundly sincere.

Thank you.

Khida space Common | Pavi
other space Common | Pavi

[Khida]

What seemed like half an eternity later, Khida dragged herself back up to her feet -- slowly, unsteadily, for it seemed almost like her body would shake itself to pieces. She wobbled away from the horse, who kept one eye on the Kelvic and the other on the grasses; Khida paused and looked out across the grass as well, seeing nothing for her effort. This time, she thought the nothing might be nearly true. She paused to examine her arm, which had been soundly bitten but seemed largely intact; punctured rather than torn. The injury itself was layered over with mud, which at least kept it from bleeding too badly. Experimentation proved that it hurt to close her fist, so she resolved not to; she held it close to her chest as a reminder.

She wobbled over towards the foal, which took a little more interest in her than before but still looked... droopy... around the edges. Khida stopped a short distance away, though, as the mud enveloping her calves threatened to keep her feet as well as her shoe. If she wasn't careful, she might get just as stuck as the foal. She needed something solid to stand on. Or at least something to fill the depths with, something that would keep her -- and the foal -- from getting sucked too deeply into the murk.

Khida had nothing to fill the space with. Nothing but her own things... and all the grass around them.

Well, she could but try.

The Kelvic made her way around to where her clothing had fallen, scooping the cloth and the sheathed knife out of the murk. Some good they had been; but she would put them to use now, if not the use she had expected. The cloth, she dumped in a convenient pile near the foal; the knife, she unsheathed and took into the grasses. Normally, she might have bundled stalks with her left hand and cut them with the right; here and now, Khida had to settle for simply mowing down what she could, thankful for the blade's sharp edge. She cleared a space near the foal and started piling the cut stalks in that lane, one handful at a time. That this was flooded grassland rather than a true lake worked to her benefit; the well-rooted clumps served as boundaries which kept the fill from spreading out too much to either side.

Adrenaline ebbed as she worked, and fatigue settled into the void its absence created; oh, but she was tired. Tired, and cold, and filthy with mud that cracked and flaked as it dried, a film Khida so looked forward to ridding herself of at the earliest opportunity. Her awareness narrowed to that which was just in front of her: to the grass she plodded through, the layers she cut and scattered and compacted underfoot, the foal she endeavored to reach. Even the mother horse became barely a footnote in her attention, as she hovered on the edge, yet watchful and wary.

Khida focused so much on filling that when she actually reached the foal, it came as a complete surprise. Suddenly, she could reach out and touch it -- when had that happened? Where had the intervening chimes gone?

She shook her head, and attended herself to the young horse's feet.

Khida space Common | Pavi
other space Common | Pavi

[Khida]

Exploring fingers met fur and flesh and little else beneath the concealing surface of the water; there was, to Khida's assessment, nothing wrong with the foal except fatigue, and nothing trapping it in place except the sucking murk itself. So if she could get the foal's feet free of the muck, get it out to shallower waters and dry ground, it would be fine.

Probably.

The little horse whuffled into her hair, which surely had to be a good sign.

Certainly Khida took it that way.

Khida was tired of cutting grass... so she took up cloth instead, fetching the heap of clothes she had left behind earlier. Taking it over to the foal, she knelt in the mud -- what concern was another layer of it on her skin, now? -- and pulled the horse's foreleg up, stuffing the cloth underneath while it was raised. More precisely, stuffing it underneath what seemed one minuscule inch at a time, because the foal didn't have the presence of mind to keep its hoof raised; having only one hand to work with, Khida had to continually alternate between one task and the other. By the time she'd worked her shirt under both forehooves, the foal seemed much more alert and excited, seeming to relish the freedom of its front feet squelching in the mud. Eager to get out of the muck, it planted its front feet and lunged forward --

-- but its rear end remained resolutely stuck. The mud-soaked cloth simply wasn't solid enough footing; its bulk kept the foal's knees clear and let it move, but provided no leverage with which to pry free the other hooves.

That, too, fell to Khida.

Fortunately, it was just a repeat of what she had done before: a little more layering of grass, particularly to fill the space beneath the foal's belly; and more layering of fabric beneath hooves which were just as physically fine as the foal's front, except for being stuck in the mud. This time, she had to contend with the tail, loose strands of hair powered by the foal's suddenly increased verve, batting about her face and shoulders. It felt something like feathers and something like a swarm of flies, and it was really annoying.

Such a relief when the sensation finally stopped, when the foal's feet found purchase and it launched itself forward in anticlimactic shambling splatter, when Khida could just slump down into the muck and be tired.

...and look up at horses.

Horses, plural. Quite a few of them, with riders, whose approach she had utterly failed to notice --

-- and whose attention seemed to be entirely focused on her.

Continued......in 'Unbroken by Oars' - link above.

Khida space Common | Pavi
other space Common | Pavi

[Naiya]

Here's what the Fox says

Name:Khida
XP Award:

• Horsemanship: 1
• Trapping: 1
• Endurance: 2
• Logic: 5
• Philosophy: 2
• Detection: 2
• Unarmed Combat: 2
• Tactics: 1
• Planning: 4
• Medicine: 1
• Wilderness Survival: 3
• Construction: 2

Lore:

• Horsemanship: Recognizing the posture of a protective mare
• Trapping: Wet rope won't do
• The cycle of life must be disrupted some times
• Reasoning with a goddess
• Horsemanship: The call of a horse in need
• The mindset of a predator
• Interrupting Caiyha's cycle
• Coyote: Opportunistic hunters and scavengers
• Endurance: Persisting through draining cold
• Tactics: A dive of distraction
• Medicine: Mud will stop bleeding in a pinch
• Wilderness Survival: Crafting grass into a path
• Archery: Drawbacks of a bow in wet conditions
• Combat: Clothing can serve as armor
• Horsemanship: Signs of impending attack
• Planning: Anticipating conflict and taking defensive measures
• Planning: Dividing resources by their present usefulness
• Survival: Delay increases predator risks
• Survival: The hazards of deep mud
• Unarmed Combat: Evasion by sudden shapeshift
• Medicine: Rest an injury by keeping it close to the chest

Awards: Bite wounds on left forearm, Strider mare and foal.
Notes: I absolutely loved this thread, Khida's dutiful work to save the horses despite how it contradicted her feeling about the cycle of life. It was a wonderful read. I awarded points where I could, but moreso I tired to fill in lore where I could.

PM me with questions or concerns.