Closed Thicker than Water, Thinner than Blood

[Khida]

guest mod approval Spring 16, 515 AV early morning Finding the Windrunner Pavilion had been easy -- just a matter of querying the Web. They had found the man of the house absent, away on a morning hunt, which made Tirak's errand easier still. Esna had cooed over the twins with the sappy adoration that was a grandmother's right, then proceeded to marshal both them and their mother for travel with the adroitness of one accustomed to helping direct a vast cohort. One young mother and two infants not yet even walking were a purely trivial problem by comparison. Tirak had insisted on riding double with Seirei; he was her father, and he had the larger horse. This had seemed like a great plan... until a message in the Web gave their return a far greater urgency. A message he could not relay to Esna, with Seirei's ears right there; daughter though she was, she was nonetheless not Drykas, and the Web an entirely forbidden subject. So Tirak egged his Strider on to greater speed without explanation, casting only a quick hurry, go towards his wife. Yet they could not truly ride, not with the added burdens of their passengers; wind gait, or even a good strong gallop, were simply not options. The Stormweavers were forced to settle for a trot, far less speed than Tirak could have wished. They coursed through the grasses on a nearly steady line, following the contours of the land as needed but always moving unerringly towards Tirak's destination. Towards the south-east, the sun just off their left shoulders. Towards a sudden flattening of the grasses, overlapping tracks of multiple wagons having beaten down a broad path through the stalks. The Stormweavers turned their horses to follow that trail, working back the way the wagons had come -- -- back to a single wagon in the midst of a swathe of flattened grass, a firepit cut into the earth nearby. A wagon which stood alone, its horses unharnessed and watching curiosity from the nearby grass. Closer inspection found its canvas cover rent in places, but what drew the eye were the people -- four of them, spanning ages from adult to adolescent, weapons prominently present in their hands. One, a man of an age with Tirak, sat bare-chested on the wagon seat, a younger woman tending to claw gashes across his shoulder and back. A boy near Seirei's age hovered nearby, agitated and watchful, his attention split between the surrounding grasses and the blue reaches of the sky. The fourth person present, intermediate in age, stood watch with readied spear, red still staining the blade's edge. Adversity had clearly come upon the wagon in their absence, an adversity which bled and which dealt injury in return. The three men all looked up towards the new arrivals; Vidra, busy with cotton and cloth, did not. Laryk, the boy beside the wagon, looked relieved; Toru with his spear seemed more equally divided between relief and ire, weighting towards the latter as thunderclouds gradually gathered in his expression. But it was Esna who spoke up first, averting the recriminations which were sure to begin in short order. "Save it for later, Toru. Let's get Seirei and her children settled, finish fixing this up, and move on into the city. We'll have plenty of time for angry words this evening." Tirak nearly succeeded in hiding his wince, but sharing a yvas as they did, the ripple of it communicated to Seirei through contact. Her father spared one hand to briefly squeeze Seirei's shoulder, intending reassurance. Then he swung down, offering to help her dismount. Once the girl was secure on her own two feet, Tirak hovered in helpful, protective escort. Welcome, he gestured, and well met, poor circumstance. "Seirei, this is my son Toru, your brother. Toru, you know of Seirei, and these are her children Lukar --" he nodded first towards the bundled infant she carried, and then the one Esna had taken up "-- and Lira." All courtesy, Esna signed, with distinct emphasis. Toru visibly swallowed the words he wanted to say, and nodded towards the woman who was not quite his mother. "Welcome, Seirei," he said, offering her a gesture of wecome shaded with a layer of rue. "I'm sorry you find us in disarray. This isn't," he added, shooting a speaking glance towards his father, "how things were supposed to be handled."

[Seirei Dawnwhisper]

Her father was...alive? Her father was alive. Seirei didn't even know what to begin to think about his sudden reappearance into her life. She wasn't certain how she felt about it, either. He had been missing for years, from Seirei's perspective. She hadn't seen him in years, at least. And deep down, Seirei had given him up for dead. It hadn't happened right away, of course. When he hadn't shown up in Endrykas that first summer, Seirei had been disappointed, but she had believed that he was just too busy to come. Her caravan never stayed in Endrykas for longer than a full season at a time, after all. So in her eyes, they had just missed each other. At the time, Seirei had harbored the thought that maybe he had arrived just after she had left. But one year had turned into two. Two had turned into three. And three had turned into four. It was hard for her to keep her hopes up year after year. After the second year, she had imagined all sorts of terrible things happening to him. Or perhaps he had gotten tired of having her for a daughter, and he was avoiding her rather than telling her the truth. That thought had occurred to her, too. The twelve year old child she had been at the time had wondered what she had done to chase her father away. She'd felt hurt and betrayed by his disappearance. But as she grew older, she had realized that it was far more likely that he had died rather than abandoned her. And while that thought had hurt deeply for different reasons, it had hurt less than the fear that he had decided that he didn't want her any more. So she had given the man up for dead, grieved, and moved on. And after her mother had gotten sick, she had had little thought for anything else. Then after she had died, and Seirei had found herself a captive of the Drykas people, Seirei had ceased to think of him at all. She had had more important things to worry about than a man who had died long ago. Only...he hadn't died, had he? The fact that she was clinging to his back as they rode was proof of that. Seirei was having a very difficult time figuring out just what had happened, but she couldn't deny the fact that her father was alive. She had been bouncing a fretful Lukar in her arms, trying to get him settled for a nap since neither child had slept well the night before. His sister, had already fallen asleep, but her brother's angry cries were disturbing her rest. Still, Seirei had finally managed to calm her son, and he was starting to doze off at last when her father had shown up, seemingly back from the dead. A woman who appeared to be in her thirties had come with him, and had quickly taken control of the situation. She had cooed at her twins for a short while, then gathered both her, and her children, and gotten them situated on the horses. No, striders. For that was what they both were, and that implied that the strange woman was a Drykas, too. Not that the words spoken in pavi, and the hand signs had left much doubt of that. Now Seirei found herself riding double, clinging to her father desperately so that she wouldn't fall off. Where had he been all of these years? Why had he chosen now to return? What did he want with her, and why? Did he even still consider her his daughter after so long being gone? And what about the woman who had come with him? Who was ahe? Why had she come? Seirei had been far too confused to put up any kind of resistance when the woman had taken charge, and gotten her onto the horse. Nor would she have been likely to try even had she had the time to think about it. Escape from Lian was a constant thought in the back of her mind...one that faded from her awareness for long. And now...well, now, these people were taking her away from her captor. Had they been strangers, Seirei might have offered some resistance. She had the twins to think of, after all, and she had no reason to trust the kindness of strangers. But...they weren't strangers. Or at least one of them wasn't. And while Seirei had a lot of questions for her father, she trusted him enough to go with him without question for the moment since he was so determined about it. When her father urged his strider to even faster speeds, Seirei let out a startled cry, and clung to him even tighter. To her, it felt as though they were moving impossibly fast, and Seirei was terrified that she would fall off. Seirei felt the horse moving beneath her, and tried to shift her weight in the same direction the horse was moving, but she didn't know if she was doing it right, or if it was helping her situation any or not. Still, it made her feel as if she was doing something to improve her chances of not falling off, so it made her feel slightly safer, at least. And hadn't her brother said something like that once the one time he had put her on the back of a horse when she had been a little girl? Move with the horse? Become one with the horse? Was this what he had meant? They raced through the grass at a terrifying speed. Each time the strider's hooves hit the ground, Seirei felt a shock jolt through her. And all the while, they never faltered in their course. The striders moved to avoid any obstacles in their path, but they never changed direction. Seirei couldn't even begin to guess where they were going, or what urgency had them moving so quickly. From the moment they had lost sight of the tent city, Seirei was hopelessly lost. Directions were meaningless when all you could see in any direction was endless tall grass. Seirei knew that it was possible to navigate by the position of the sun and stars in the sky. Her caravan had traveled that way. But Seirei knew nothing of how they did so. The most she remembered was that the sun rose in the east, and set in the west. How could you get a direction from that unless the sun was rising or setting at the time? Unless...to distract herself from her current predicament, Seirei risked a brief glance at the sky. It was still early morning...did that mean that the sun was still in the eastern part of the sky? Seirei had no way of knowing, but it did make sense that it would be that way. With the way they were riding, the sun was just off their left shoulders. When Seirei was a child, she had seen a map once. At the time, it meant little to her. But a single shape had stood out in her young mind. Two crossed arrows with one vertical, and one horizontal. Just above the arrow pointing up was an N. Directly below it was an S. To the right, an E, and to the left, a W. The picture had looked strange to the young girl, and so Seirei had asked her older brother about it. Jared had told her that the letters represented directions on the map. N for north, S for south, E for east, and W for west. Seirei winced as an especially hard jolt threatened to unbalance her. When she had managed to shift her weight so she didn't feel as though she was about to fall off any longer, she checked to make certain that her son was okay. Lukar didn't seem to be any worse for what Seirei imagined to be their near fall. Satisfied that he was as safe as it was possible to be when clinging to the back of a near stranger, and hoping that they didn't fall off, Seirei tried to distract herself once more by trying to picture herself standing on the map her brother had showed her. If the sun was in the east, and it was to the left of them, did that mean that they were traveling north? No...that wasn't right. North was "up" on the map, so if the sun was in the east, it would be on their right if they were going north. So that meant they were traveling south, then? After a while, Seirei gave up trying to guess what direction they were traveling in. She had no real way of knowing, and another sharp jolt reminded Seirei that a distraction could be dangerous just now. Seirei felt a measure of great relief when the wagon came into view. If that was their destination, then it meant they would stop...and sure enough, they did. But Seirei's relief was short lived as she took in the sight before her. The horses were loose, and standing near by. Had this been her caravan, such a thing never would have been permitted for fear that the horses would escape. A closer look told her that the wagon had taken some damage. The canvas was rent in places, looking as if some animal had tried to shred it with its claws. The sight sent a shiver of apprehension up Seirei's spine. There were four people clustered around the wagon. A man that appeared to be around the same age as her father sat on the wagon seat while a woman tended to horrible looking claw gashes on his shoulders and back. Once again, Seirei shivered as she thought of what might have caused those injuries. The other two, one a boy who looked to be around Seirei's age, and another man were both armed, and alert for...something. It was obvious to see that something had attacked them, and Seirei hated to think of what that something might have been. Her father winced at the promise of "angry words" to come later. Then he squeezed her shoulder, and helped her to dismount. Introductions were made...one was, anyway. The man with the bloodied spear was named Toru, and he was...her brother? Seirei's eyes widened in surprise at the revelation. She realized that she knew even less about her father than she had previously thought. Seirei glanced briefly at the others she had not been introduced to yet. Were they related to her somehow, as well? Brothers? Sisters? Cousins, perhaps? Seirei didn't know, and she couldn't even begin to decide how she felt about learning about at least one family member she had never even known she had. It did offer a potential explanation as to where her father had been all these years. He had been with his other family...his real family. Had Seirei and her mother simply been an amusing diversion, then? Something to amuse himself with when he was away from home? What did his real family think of her? Did they even know that they were related? What did they think about her father having a second family? Did they resent her for existing? Seirei shoved her confused thoughts aside. Toru...her brother was speaking, and Seirei needed to pay close attention to the words if she wanted any hope of understanding what was being said. And although she didn't know the meaning of every word used, she thought she understood the gist of it. Welcome was understood readily enough, both in word, and in hand sign. But there was a second sign that accompanied the first that she didn't quite recognize. It represented a feeling, and one of the negative ones...but which one? Sorrow? Regret? Neither was quite right, but it was something similar to both, Seirei thought. Seirei responded with a polite greeting of her own. Her words and hand signs alike were hesitant, and uncertain. She hoped that they would understand that her hesitance came from her struggle to understand what was being said rather than any kind of rejection on her part. Toru's next words were an apology for something. But Seirei was uncertain of just what he was apologizing for. Their appearance? Their state of being? Or...was he apologizing for the attack they had suffered? For the chaos after the attack? Seirei felt as though she should understand more than she was. While far from fluent, she knew enough to make out a good amount of what was being said around her...usually. But Seirei's emotions were running wild, and she was more than a little confused by everything that was happening. Her current state of mind wasn't one that was conductive to puzzling out words and coming up with reasonable guesses at the meaning of unfamiliar words based on the context of what she did understand. As a result, she was finding it much harder to translate what was being said. "What..." Seirei shook her head, flushing a little at her inability to find the right words. "No, not what. How? How was things..." Again Seirei hesitated, struggling to find the right word. "How was things...to be handled?" It sounded wrong, even to her, but Seirei hoped that her question would be understood well enough to get her the answers she needed.

[Lian Windrunner]

Lian dismounted when they got to the stream nearest the tent city. As usual, Lian planned to look for a trail he could follow, using the stream as a starting place since all animals needed to drink sooner or later, and water sources were a great place to look for prints. Also as usual, Lian slipped into the Web from time to time to make certain that there weren't any dangerous predators heading his way. As he did so now, he was greatly relieved to see that he and Talise were safe. For now, at least. Safety was a relative thing out in the Sea of Grass, and it could vanish in a tick if one was unwary. Lian was about to slip out of the Web and return to his body once more when he realized that something felt...off. He checked again, but there was nothing nearby that could be any kind of threat to him or his strider. So what was wrong? Why did he feel as though he was missing something? A sudden thought occurred to Lian; what if something had happened to the twins? Seirei was an outsider. She had no webbing skills...she didn't even know of the Web's existence. So if something had happened, she would have no way to tell him. In a near panic, he followed his path along the glowing blue lines of the Web back the way he had come until he reached the mass of djed that represented Endrykas in the Web. Seirei and the twins were...gone. Ice cold panic ran through his veins, spurring him into action. Diving through the strands of the Web, he frantically searched for any sign of them. To his great relief, he found them. They weren't where they belonged, but at least they were alive. Then Lian frowned, or he would have had he been in his body. Seirei and the twins weren't where they were supposed to be? Weren't in Endrykas? But then...where were they?! They were out in the Sea of Grass, not that far from the city. And they were moving southeast at a speed that told Lian that they had to be on horseback. That gave Lian another reason to pause. Seirei didn't know how to ride. At least, he had never seen her ride, or heard of anyone teaching her. Had she asked that healer friend of hers to teach her in secret? Was this an escape attempt that Seirei had been planning for some time now? Rage flooded Lian. If this was an escape attempt, then it would fail. And Seirei would learn the consequences of her actions. When he was finished with her, she would never dare try to run away again. Lian all but flung himself out of the Web in his fury. The jarring transition back into his body left him feeling dizzy, disoriented, and bruised. It took him precious chimes to reorient himself. Then he was off, spurring Talise into her wind gait with gesture, and word. He clung to the rings on his yvas with sheer, furious determination as the wind whipped past him, stinging his flesh as it threatened to rip him off of his strider's back. There was only one thought in Lian's mind, and it echoed throughout his entire being with an icy clarity. He was going to find Seirei, and drag her home. And then...she was going to regret trying to escape him.