Open The Slow Reprieve

[Colt]

6th of spring, 517 a.v
morning

Inside Alvadas, every breath was madness. Ever since the beginning of the season, it seemed to have reached a fever pitch; something was happening, a festival of some sort, and it made the city and people unbearable in their chaos. Everything was noise and shadows; on a bad day, Colt couldn’t even be sure that the ground under his feet was real, much less the people around him and the mirages flickering in the corner of his eyes. The city’s madness was unending.

Outside the city, though, there was tranquility.

Even just a few steps outside the wall, Colt could already feel the world slotting into place around him. Solid. Slow. Sensible. Snow trotted peacefully at his hip, gradually easing as the chaos faded to order. The mountain pines creaked softly in the wind, joined by birdsong and the occasional chatter of squabbling chipmunks. Far overhead, a long-winged bird was coasting lazily, with finger-like primary feathers and a short head. A vulture, perhaps?

It was a bittersweet experience, feeling the natural world while knowing that, no matter how much it calmed him, he would have to return to Alvadas at some point. For just a moment, Colt turned to glance over his shoulder, not at the city, but beyond––past the walls, past the sea, into the far east along the silver cord that called to him every waking moment.

And then he reminded himself of the here and now, before those thoughts could stray into more painful territory.

The wayward Drykas paused after a chime of walking, closing his eyes to just experience the world around him. He knew that, despite appearances, all was not well; winter’s absence had done damage, but without a mark for mountains, all he could do was speculate. Kalea was beyond his ability to heal, which frustrated him.

Colt didn’t go far from Alvadas––he had a sneaking suspicion that if he did, the city might not be there when he got back––but still managed to leave sight of the walls. When he felt sufficiently alone, he dropped the archer’s target he had been carrying and stretched to get blood flowing back through his shoulders. Snow, sensing that they were stopping, sniffed at the target once before wandering off a few feet to investigate their surroundings.

The shortbow was a strange weapon to him, but he’d yet to run across any weaponsmith with javelins on this side of the world. The shortbow had been––no, still was––Khida’s weapon, and despite being a novice with it, the thing was not foreign. In its own way, it brought an illusion of comfort.

He found a break in the trees large enough to set up the archer’s target and wide enough to shoot, where the ground was carpeted in pine needles and thick bracken made false walls around him. There were a few curious jays that regarded him oddly, but for the most part the world passed him by to attend its own business. Colt strung his bow, slung his quiver across his shoulders and drew an arrow.

The first shot was barely a shot at all; Colt stood directly in front of the target, taking only as much distance as was required to physically draw the weapon. He was a strong man, but hadn’t expected the strain in his neck––a bow used more muscles than he assumed. But that was the purpose of this first shot; not to aim, but to become familiar with his new weapon and what it took to use it.

Colt drew the nocked arrow to his cheek, and then he held. He felt the tension in his body, taking note of each protesting muscle and their locations; if he knew where the strain was, he could build tolerance. After five deep breaths, he let the arrow go.

At a distance of two paces, the arrow hit the target in front of him.

The Witch closed his eyes to feel the burn slipping out of his shoulders and the familiar tingle of exercise it left behind. He rolled his neck and felt a few satisfying cracks, then drew another arrow. Another shot, another self-study.

[Aenisa]

6th of Spring - 517 AV

Previous days, ever since she had gotten into town, had been hectic and full of all kinds of illusions, all of them vying to become the one that would fracture the sanity of the Inarta woman. Aenisa had spent the days being utterly confused about everything. Spending half the first night trying to find her house until she realised that her key lead the way, this did not exactly make her appreciate the craziness of the city. Festivities inside of the city was slowly building, as the craze levelled itself onto the city like a thin layer of peace between chaos and pandemonium. At least the city was celebrating the one thing that made the city famous.

Aenisa had to escape the madness, the volume of it all was suffocating her like a thick blanket in the summer, you only wanted to be under it for so long. Having settled into her house she had decided upon travelling outside of the city for the day. With the closing of her door she was off and it seemed that Ionu was taking pity on her for the day as she found her house only a couple of blocks from the Sanity Center. After only half an hour she had found the way to it as well, the sun having not yet risen above the city and the streets were still quiet and for the most part, empty. The occasional rat was scurrying across the cobblestones as the dew of the morning mist was still evident on the streets. Today Aenisa would be out the gates before chaos started all again. Aenisa came to think of it, the city was like a massive festival all the time, slowly winding itself up each morning as people awoke. City would be reaching peak madness around lunchtime it was then gradually winding down for the evening and then it seemed to die off during the early hours of the morning before starting all over the next day.

Through the Maw her quick pace took her, she still hadn’t bought the supplies for Inagio, her falcon and so she had left her at home today. Aenisa wanted to scout the surrounding area but most of all, she wanted to experience something beside the kettle of madness that Alvadas had cooked for her. Emerging into the earliest of the morning sun, Aenisa paused for a moment to drink in the warmth that the sun brought with it. The true power of the gods truly lay in the life that the sun provided for them, it was the sustenance on which the entire world depended. As she allowed the sun to coat her skin in a light film of warmth she could feel how order slowly was creeping back into her life. Birdsong brought her back to reality again and Aenisa decided that she was just going to do some light reconnoitre for the day. Hoping to find a good open field in which she could start to properly train Inagio in.

She realised as she looked around herself that she had emerged outside of the gates on a path leading away from the city with open fields on either side of the road. Tall, green trees were lining the field in a random order as they marked the edge of the canvas to frame the field like it had been crafted by the gods themselves. Perhaps the idea that the gods had crafted the fields and the forests outside of Alvadas came from the fact that the city was so chaotic. Whatever the reason for Aenisa’s thoughts was, she was decided upon heading for the trees, this field was too open, too public, too dangerous.

The reconnoitre would carry Aenisa around much of the city she had postulated and so decided that it would be best if she at least had an eye on the walls of the city to begin with. Pushing through the open field she was leaving a trail of broken stems of grass in her wake, it looked as if a very narrow herd of buffalos had come rushing through. Aenisa was not the subtlest of people. Her heavy-handed way of walking attested to her inexperience in this type of terrain. Soon though, Aenisa was by the edge of the forest and quickly disappeared from the fields and out, into the forest. Like a sweeping protective colouring, the green of the forest concealed her from the view of the city.

Not knowing what type of people lured in the woods around Alvadas, the understanding was that she was going to have to be careful. As the woods around the city shifted from being compact to being down-right skeletal. Sometimes the trees had been convinced to yield their ground for a meadow or an open field too. As Aenisa made her way through the woods she was walking over roots from trees that must have been hundreds of years old. Protuberant, the roots pushed up the ground to form rolling hills between each set of trees, ground covered in grass and moss only. The old forest was scarce and opened frequently to meadows as Aenisa was travelling through it, her eyes constantly perusing the horizon for anything of interest.

That was when she saw him in the opening in the forest ahead of her. What was the man doing out in the forest? Aenisa pushed herself up against the nearby trunk of the tree and allowed herself to focus on the man in the distance as she tried to understand what he was doing. Silence of the woods were only delayed by the resonance from the arrows as they were striking the targets, this was interwoven with the gentle rustling of the trees in the soft breeze. Aenisa had to move closer, carefully moving from the tree she was behind she was moving towards the man. One foot stepping in front of the other as she was skulking towards the opening slowly. Aenisa kept her gaze firmly fixed on the man with the bow, like a hunter stalking its pray from the shadows. When her distance from the man could be measured in trees, on one hand, Aenisa came to a stop. Slowly she sank down onto the ground as she sat half-hidden behind the trunks of the trees and watched the man practicing his technique, no doubt thinking he was alone.

Aenisa was so focused on the practicing man that she failed to notice the distinctly white creature approaching from her side.

SPACER

[Colt]

Much like the first, this shot was slow. Colt drew the nocked arrow, focusing on how he felt instead of what he wanted to hit. He centered himself, inhaling slowly. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

He set the arrow loose, and it thudded obediently into the target.

The Witch rolled his shoulders to savor the burn, and was filled with a sense of… not hope, exactly, but a cool sort of optimism. The weapon was strange still, but not not a mystery. With work, he would learn to command it.

In the meantime, he was beginning to understand those leather trinkets archers always seemed to carry. Their interesting two-finger gloves were now obviously meant to protect the drawing fingers from the string; Colt could already feel his skin stretching sharply. There was also their leather arm guards to protect their bow hand from the same, although that was less painful. Each shot had given his arm a buzz, but he’d worn long sleeves. Still, it would been good to find one just in case.

He drew another arrow from the quiver and moved to nock it, but stopped short when Snow and the valley around them went tense.

There was a phenomenon Colt had observed in most places that he called “wolf flight:” the habit of ground creatures to, upon seeing a stalking wolf or other hunting predator, abandon their business on the earth and either take to the trees or find their burrows. He felt the birds go quiet, which usually wouldn’t have concerned him––until heard the gentle, almost silent crunch of pine leaves under something heavy, something too close for comfort, and then saw Snow pin her ears defensively.

The alarms in his head went off. Colt had been hunted by many things in his life, and to say that being hunted made him aggressive would have been an understatement.

He signaled his partner to go, and she slipped into the brush. As he ran through his situation, Colt raised the arrow at the target to at least pretend like he was unaware. He breathed, drew, and held.

There was his shortbow, but it would take a miracle for him to hit anything at a distance. He had his cutlass, hunting knife and hand axe, but he was barely better with the knife and axe than he was with the shortbow. What he trusted most was his hands, which would be of little use against a sword or spear. And if he was being hunted by someone––a person, because no animal would dare––he would bet the person had a weapon on them.

His first guess was a slaver, followed by thief and Zith. No, not Zith; they wouldn’t be hunting him from the ground. A part of him hoped it was a slaver, because of the sheer satisfaction it would give him to kill one; outside the city, there were no laws to stop him.

He’d need to get close, too close for swords or spears. He would start with the axe, which was just small enough to use at that range, and if that failed, he’d fall to the knife. If even that failed, he would resort to the cutlass long enough to get away and reach the deep woods, where he could become the hunter, and the slaver the prey.

He let the arrow go. It hit the target, and a few heartbeats later, Snow charged.

The dog did not go gently; whatever Aenisa might look like to another person, Snow saw only a hunter stalking her master. She was trained not to draw blood without Colt’s express permission, but a few bruises weren’t beyond her; with only one enemy, her directive became keep it here until otherwise told.

With surprise on her side, Snow attacked. She came at Aenisa from the side, leaping up with the intent to slam the woman off her feet. Though her teeth were bared and snarling, Snow did nothing more than aim a few threatening bites at the air near the Inarta’s face.

If her advantage held and Aenisa was knocked down, Snow would do her best to pin her there. If Aenisa managed to run, Snow would ignore her training to chase those feet and try biting them back to the ground.

With Snow’s snarls as a beacon, Colt pinpointed his stalker’s location: four trees away right behind a pine. He sprinted toward the scene as fast as he was able, dropping the bow and grabbing the axe from his belt. He trusted Snow to keep the stranger occupied or, if it turned dangerous, get out before she was injured fatally. He couldn’t see their enemy yet, but he was preparing himself for the worst.

In any case, however Aenisa responded to Snow, it wouldn’t last for long; in a few more moments, they would be joined by an angry Drykas with more than one sharp weapon to his name––a Drykas who would pause at the sight of the Inarta woman, blink, and then look around in disbelief that this was their stalker.

[Aenisa]

6th of Spring - 517 AV

Gently the arrow came onto the string of the bow once more, it was all smooth movements, like that of a master playing the violin. Movements came slow as the arrow was knocked against the string and the string pulled back, something was off about his movement though as the man stopped suddenly. Aenisa felt as if he might have sensed her approach, was it that sixth sense again that was playing tricks on her? For a moment, the tension in the air seemed to heighten and Aenisa found herself feeling a little uneasy about being there. Whatever the reason for his brief pause was soon forgotten as he resumed his practice and let the arrow sail off through the air onto the target.

Coarse and hard, the bark of the tree was rubbing up against her clothes, it wasn’t the most comfortable position for her to be in. It was going to have to do for the moment though as she had only been there for a short while and wasn't planning on sticking around. Feeling like she should maybe turn and head back the other way but at the same time thinking that perhaps she should approach the man and see what he truly was up to. The idea of her observing him from a distance felt right to her though as she tried to discern what exactly it was that the man was doing out in the woods, by himself.

Slowly now the white figure was creeping ever closer to Aenisa who stood, completely unaware of the inevitable attack that was coming her way. An arrow came to the string of the bow again, Aenisa didn’t know if she was overreacting but it seemed as if the man had somehow changed his behaviour as he was loading the next arrow onto the string. Raising the bow and placing the sights onto the target once more. Something was very wrong now and deep down there was something, that something was screaming to Aenisa for her to leave, or perhaps it was from far above that it came. Wherever it came from, it was the subtle details in all that was going on that made it so wrong and so as the next arrow hit the target she was done. Aenisa had decided that she was going to leave now.

She was just about to tear herself away from the vision of the man in the woods when the pure strength of the hound hit Aenisa in her side. The attack, sending her barrelling forwards into and over the moss-covered roots of the tree, at which she had been standing. Head first straight into the velvety covered solid roots, her legs seemed to fall behind as they came tumbling over her and send her down the small slope of the roots. Copper locks spilling out every which way as she came to a stop, spreading out from the young woman like the roots of a tree. Confusion, anger, fear. Aenisa now found herself laying completely exposed at the foot of the tree that had been her cover from view. To say that Aenisa found herself surprised was a mild understatement. Aenisa knew that her minutes were counting down fast now as her eyes were wide open, filled with fear and panic. What was going to happen to her and what was it that had attacked her from behind like that. Snarling had accompanied the attack, was it a wolf or a dog, it was a question that was quickly bouncing around her head. Not so much was the question on her mind out of curiosity as it were out of fear of what might come next.

In a split second, before Aenisa could even ponder the idea any further the white beast was on her, pinning her to the ground with its sharp canine teeth and a snarl that would drive fear into some of the more hardened criminals of Alvadas. The hardened exterior spoke of a true fighting dog, the paws that was firmly planted on Aenisa’s chest however were soft and didn’t exactly hurt her. Raising her arms in front of her face as soon as the white beast had pounced on her, she was expecting the beast to rip into her, nothing came. Snarling and standing guard like Aenisa was prey for its master. Not daring to touch the dog for fear that it might change its mind and start to attack her, not wielding any weapon at all of herself. She had found herself exposed, unarmed as she had been attacked and taken aback by a dog, a wild ferocious beast.

The footsteps came crashing hard against the otherwise soft ground now, she could feel them, hear them, branches cracking underneath them as the owner of the footsteps grew ever closer. Rushing towards Aenisa the approaching man must have been running as quickly as he could, the ground seemed never to be allowed a rest. Once they were sufficiently close for Aenisa to think that she might have a chance with the help of whomever it was that was coming to her rescue from the snowy beast she shouted out. Her voice carrying with it the sound that only sheer, true panic and desperation can do, the voice was cracking up as it was fluctuating heavily in its volume.

“Help me! The beast is going to kill me!”

Waiting for her saviour she was hiding her face still from the dog, shielding herself from the ferocious attack that would be imminent, no doubt, if she was trying to resist the controlling beast.

SPACER

[Colt]

The cry for help was the first thing that gave away the identity of the “enemy.”

She was a thin slip of a thing, curled defensively on the ground with Snow weighing down on top of her. Colt’s eyes caught on her red hair, but he didn’t dwell; a quick scan of the situation revealed empty hands and no discernable weapons. Her clothing was foreign but plain, her skin smooth and unscarred, and her belt had no scabbards he could see.

Was this the one that had put them so on edge?

Part of him––the paranoid part––insisted that she must possess power of some sort. Magic, perhaps, or gnosis; no one wandered the wilderness without a way to protect themselves. She could be disguising herself with illusions, or worse yet, was an illusion crafted by the city to trick him into coming back. It seemed like something Alvadas would do.

Another part of him––the optimistic part––insisted that maybe she was just a foolhardy wandered who had decided to go for a walk. In the wilderness. Without weapons. And then try to sneak up on someone who did have weapons.

It only took a few heartbeats for him to decide on the latter.

“Snow!” he said sharply, bringing his dog to attention. “To me.”

She hesitated for a split second, but obeyed when he demanded she come right now. The white dog left her prisoner to her own devices and came to prowl cautiously behind the Witch’s legs, though her ice blue eyes remained fixed upon the stranger.

Stay, Colt told her, taking a few steps forward to offer the woman a hand back to her feet. Regardless of if she took the hand or not, Colt had questions.

“Semele’s skin, what is this? A fox hunting a bear,” cultakh. “You, here, why?” No, wait. He closed his eyes, trying to remember how they were supposed to be ordered. “Why – are – you – here? Out of city, wild, bad things come.”

Snow barked worriedly from her place a few paced back, and Colt signaled for her to wait, stay on guard. He didn’t think this woman before him was a threat, but he didn’t want to relax until he knew for certain.

[Aenisa]

6th of Spring - 517 AV

It had always been the forest that had thrown up the most complex challenges as a child for Aenisa. Autumn as the bears were moving towards the mountains, they tended to be stealthier than one could expect them to be. More than one time Aenisa had to run from a bear or fend one off, however she had never been doing it alone. As the Inarta woman lay on the soft ground with the beast on top of her she realised that, this, the life of a single individual meant that she had to be more cautious. If she was going to get out of the situation with her skin intact she had to make sure that it would count for something. Through the air the foreign words vibrated, reaching her ears as well as to the dog’s, shortly after they had been uttered, the dog had let go of her.

Curious as to what was actually happening and why the beast had let her free again, Aenisa lowered her arms as she dared to look beyond her own flesh and blood again. Her first reaction was to slam her hands down into the moss and scoot up, back towards the tree, her eyes that was once filled with the fear of the beast was now dissipating before the man’s very vision. Slender in frame the fire burned strong in her veins and the fear of the world only struck her momentarily in the face of death. To an outsider who encountered Aenisa she might look like a typical Inarta woman, a woman who seemingly was nothing outside of the ordinary for her race but would probably fit best in around the commoners of a city. However inside, Aenisa had a furnace of fire burning, emerging like the lava from a continuously erupting volcano.

Back crashing into the trunk of the tree again allowed Aenisa to know that she was as far back as she was going to get, the advance of the man not alleviating her internal panic at the situation. The equipment of the man that was now walking to her proved that he was a far more experienced woodsman than she was and that he had come prepared, expecting trouble. Aenisa wasn’t even sure if there was a lot of trouble in the forest around Alvadas or if the myriad of weapons that the man carried was for his own sanity. The reason was not important, what was important was what he wanted, why she had gotten attacked.

The soft texture of her slender hands easily disappeared in the hands of the man before her, the strength that pulled her up and onto her feet almost sent her rocketing forwards as she wasn’t prepared for it. Wobbling for a moment, almost crashing into the chest of the man, Aenisa managed to stand, her hand, gently using the chest of the man as leverage. Standing straight again, piercing eyes went over to the snow dog behind the man, her mixed, gently transitioning eyes meeting those icey blue ones. Stare didn’t last more than a second but it didn’t have to last more for Aenisa to feel like she had spoken all she needed to say to the dog. As she had been doing this, the voice of the man had started to flow again, some words she didn’t quite understand and some words she did understand. The man seemed to switch between languages, interchangeably at that, Aenisa had to concentrate if she wanted to understand him.

Like stumbling through a street, drunk, the words came out, one by one by one and in a cracked order at that. Aenisa just wanted to berate the man for the handling of his dog but at the same time she wasn’t sure what the man wanted or whom he was, making him angry when she was unarmed and alone was never going to end good. Aenisa started to brush herself off in the middle of the sentence of the man, as he was speaking to her. The royal rumble that she had with the dog had left her full of tiny extracts from the moss all over her clothes. Aenisa sighed as the man just about finished his sentence and then she spoke, her tone now having fallen back to a slightly more normal tone, the fear being gone. As Aenisa started her tangent she also started to move about in a small spot on the ground, her stare always fixed on Colt.

“Why I am here? It is the forest, I walk the forest, from time to time.” She was working herself up, winding up as the words would start to go quicker and quicker the further into her conversation that she got, eventually almost blending together. “Last time I checked, if one needed some sanity this was where one went, I don’t see you running about in the city and practicing that bow. If you knew the kinds of tricks that forsaken city plays on you, you would walk out here too. But noo, instead-you-are-out-here-shooting-that-bow-and-having-your-beast-over-there.” She gesticulated wildly at Snow. “Running-around-and-jumping-on-people-like-it’s-a-badly-trained-Eagle. I’ve-been-in-the-city-and-the-madness-is-killing-me-and-now-I-am-out-here-and-there-is-even more-madness-around-me!” Aenisa came to a sudden halt in her outburst as she threw up her hands in the air and grunted loudly.

Closing her eyes, Aenisa took a deep breath, audibly. As her eyes opened once more they were fixed squarely on Colt, a slight undertone of annoyance in her voice.

“What am I doing here? That is what I am doing here. Why do you got that beast skulking about and attacking people?”

SPACER

[Colt]

She had green eyes. Well, mostly green eyes. He didn’t dwell on them, but he noticed – green eyes and red hair. Not a common combination, and one he couldn’t help taking note of; the woman before him was a stranger, but he allowed himself to note her similarities to the last red-haired, green-eyed woman he had seen. This one’s hair was too orange, and her eyes too golden to be a true mirror of his past, but she reminded him nonetheless.

For that, he was almost grateful.

The string of emotions that the young woman chose to display was… interesting, to say the least.

First there was the fear, immediate and obvious in the way she shot backwards toward the tree. She eyed Snow, then him, then his equipment, and seemed to realize quickly that he and his dog were on the same side.

Then there was the willingness to overcome fear, in the way she took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. A portion of the forest seemed to come up with her, stuck in her hair and clothes after the fall to the ground. Her hands were soft – too soft to be accustomed to wilderness.

Then there was the patience, in the way she listened intently as she brushed off her clothes. Her eyes never left him, which he supposed was good. He had enough difficulty with Common as it was; he didn’t want to repeat himself.

Then, finally, there was the indignance, swelling up like fire in a gust of wind as she made her great reply.

It was easy enough to understand at first; she had been “walking” in the forest, looking for… for some sanity, whatever that was. And he himself should have been… shooting inside the city? She was gesturing at his bow, so he assumed it was what she was talking about. The city played tricks on her – yes, that was something he understood. And more about “walking” outside the city, and by then her words sped up to the point he just stopped trying to understand.

The woman slid into a string of sounds that went in one ear and out the other. He wondered if she knew how difficult it was to understand her, but she seemed to be enjoying herself and he didn’t want get in the middle of that. So Colt just sidled up to the tree and leaned against it patiently, watching as her words and wild gestures grew more fervent. Although he didn’t understand a single thing, the general message was clear enough: How dare you attack someone who was sneaking up on you?

She reminded him strongly of the older Drykas boys that would linger around the hunting tents, watching the experienced warriors quietly and then puff up their feathers when they were noticed, as if their skulking was the proper thing to do and the elder hunters were the offenders for taking notice.

A somewhat frustrating group of youngsters, but not without merit – the ones who skulked tended to survive the longest.

The woman eventually decided she was done and threw her hands into the air with a grunt. She closed her eyes and paused.

“What am I doing here? That is what I am doing here.”

Of course. Because she had explained so clearly.

She gestured at Snow, who had decided that the young woman was unlikely to be any thread; the dog had settled onto her haunches and was watching the red-haired stranger with mild curiosity.

“Snow will do what I tell,” Colt answered. “We hear person come close, walk quiet, I tell my Snow ‘protect.’ Out here is wild. If a thing walk quiet, a thing walk to kill other thing. A person walk quiet, the same. You have no wish to fight strangers, do not make strangers think you hunt them.” Colt glanced at her feet. “Or,” at the very least, “hunt them less loud.”

Colt returned the axe to his belt, then gave Snow a whistled and command to go over there – back toward the clearing with the archer’s target. She took her time standing and stretching, but didn’t fuss and went.

In the meantime, Colt went to retrieve his fallen bow and quiver.

[Aenisa]

The annoyance was dying down again, the volcano and erupting flames from within having played its song, it was now retreating within the body of the young Inarta woman. Aenisa had been drinking in the calmness of the woods and the disconnection that it lent itself to in comparison to the city-life. Some of the tranquillity that she had sought in the woods were still out there, soaking up her frustrations and anger. Aenisa had wanted to observe what the man had been doing and then moved on but now she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

When Aenisa had slowed down and calmed down again after her outburst, it struck her. He didn’t speak very well in the common tongue, or at least did not seem to do that, she wondered how much of what she had said that he had understood. She had been hot tempered but he had seemed calm almost to the point that she had found it irritating, that was not supposed to happen. Puffing her cheeks out, Aenisa watched with some annoyance but more a curious interest at the man that was still with her. Just like the seasons changed around the world, so it seemed did Aenisa’s emotions, running wild for one moment to calmness in the next. Her inner Inarta always seemed to be throwing more wood on the fire once she had gotten started and it tended to land her in more trouble than it was worth.

For a moment, she thought that she wouldn’t get an answer out of the man, perhaps he hadn’t understood her, Aenisa felt stupid. She should have noticed that earlier but in her fit of anger she had completely forgotten about the hints that he had given her. He started to speak, slow if one were to compare with how she had just spoken and once again, the words were cracked and broken in places. This was not his best-spoken language.

Listening politely, it seemed like the right thing to do to a man who held an axe and had a wide assortment of weapons laying around, on or near him. For most of the conversation, Aenisa found herself wanting to interject and tell him where he spoke wrong, how it was supposed to be pronounced. She refrained from doing so. As he started to head for his bow and quiver, Aenisa followed along a few paces behind him, not quite sure how to start her conversation. Taking care to speak slowly this time she started up, her voice was now seemingly back to normal, slightly upbeat and curious as she asked.

“Uh, so… you mean…” She cut herself off and started over with her sentence. “What do you mean walking quiet? You heard me approach?” The confusion in her voice was only found in the underlying structure of her words, mostly it was the curiosity that stood out. “I don’t need to kill anyone out here, why would you need to? I wasn’t hunting anyone.” Aenisa puffed her cheeks out again like she had been a small child and then she said as she finished. “How do I hunt less loudly than what I did?”

Her eyes scanning the man and following him along if he had continued to walk away when he had gotten his bow, something about him was very off and it was bothering Aenisa. He wasn’t from the lands but he clearly was very observant and aware of those around him, like a master thief who breaks into a castle, he knew exactly where she had been.

SPACER

[Colt]

The bow was fine, as was the quiver once he’d picked up the fallen arrows back up and set them all in order. Snow had wandered to the edge of the clearing to investigate a hole, leaving Colt to return to his practice.

He felt the stranger follow him after a few moments, having apparently cooled off from her outburst. Colt didn’t protest, unless she stepped in between him and the target. He returned to his original spot and pulled the string experimentally, just to remember the flex of the weapon, then drew another arrow.

He paused when she began to speak again. Her words were slower and much easier to understand than the first time around; Colt listened carefully as he fitted the next arrow to the string.

He signed that he was listening, for all the good it would do a foreigner, and drew the bow. Breathe. Hold for five seconds. Exhale. He set the arrow loose, and it thudded into the outer edge of the target.

“You walk not to kill people, that is good. You walk with no weapon, less good. Other things out here, walk to kill – men, beasts, Zith. You walk with no weapon, not good. Out here, never alone, and if other hunt you, you will die.”

Colt dropped his bow arm and stretched his shooting hand. After a moment of that, he gestured to the woman’s feet.

“You walk with person-steps. Loud. Things hear you. Walk with beast-steps, less loud.” He paused, weighed his options, then decided to demonstrate.

“Here,” he said, pointing to his feet. “Person-steps, like you walk, like this.” He took a false step, exaggerating the typical person’s walk: striking the ground with the heel and rolling forward. “This step loud, hit ground, break things. But the hunter’s walk, beast-steps different, like this.” Unlike the first step, this one went sideways. He placed the outer edge on the ground, starting with the ball of his foot, then rolled inward. Where the “person-walk” went from back to front, the “beast-walk” went from side to side, forcing the step to become softer.

[Aenisa]

6th of Spring - 517 AV

Her feet felt light as they were following the man back to the clearing, no longer did Aenisa feel any apprehensions about the man. If he had wanted her dead, she would be dead by this time and so she followed along in a calm manner again, her fire having subsided completely now. Soon they emerged out into the clearing, the sun piercing through the crowns of the trees to let the grass bask in its glory. It was like an oasis in an otherwise green and lush forest, this was a welcome sight no doubt both for men and animals alike.

It seemed at first like the man wasn’t listening to what Aenisa had to say as he was seemingly more interested in his bow and the practice that he had been doing before she had arrived in the forest. As he was preparing to let loose the string, his aim seemingly a little off, Aenisa’s words just about ended as his fingers slipped from the string. A fitting end to the conversations, his arrow missed the middle and Aenisa’s words seemed to have missed him. She wasn’t aware of he had heard the words that she had told him or even understood them. He began to speak.

The words came like an entangled mess as he was trying to explain to her what she had done wrong, what she needed to change to be more safe out in the woods. The man capped it off by telling her that she was just as much a prey to others as he had been in her eyes and that she would be an easy target for a hunter to kill. Aenisa watched as the man dropped the bow and started to stretch, her mind was still processing the words as he began to gesture towards her feet. He began to explain to her how she should walk to be more silent, how she could become better at avoiding detection from others, how to walk like a beast. Foot moving side to side as Aenisa watched with great interest at the movements that the man was doing, it wasn’t quite the normal steps that she was used to but it could work. Stepping up near the man she placed her foot roughly in front of him as she watched him and then tried to imitate him. Slowly she pushed the foot down against the ground, her heel came first and then she tried to roll it like he had done. She shook her head, feeling that it wasn’t quite right and she started over. Aenisa pushed her foot down again, this time, side first as she gently allowed it to roll across and then she lifted it once she came to the other side of the foot.

“Like so?”

She asked, looking at the man with a curious look on her features. It had felt roughly right to her at least and she assumed that she had been right too. Aenisa looked past the feet of the two at the bow and arrow this time, her eyes scanning it briefly to see what quality that it held. It then came to her realisation that she had forgotten to totally introduce herself in any fashion at all, once she had been attacked by the snow-coloured wolf-beast. Straightening up her back a little extra, as if she was meeting someone important and had to look proper she began to speak.

“I never say who I am, I am Aenisa. Why you here? Shooting bow by yourself? You know how?”

This time it was she that gestured somewhere, at the bow on the ground. Her eyes seemed to be searching the small clearing in which they both stood, the target a short distance away, the bow, the quiver, the man. She wanted to know more, he had told her some word earlier, Slith?, Zluth?, Sleth?, she couldn’t quite remember the name but decided to ask.

“You say that someone want to kill here? Slith? What is that?”

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