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Alwyn visits the community pools for the first time, and meets a landlubber named Nya.

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Syka is a new settlement of primarily humans on the east coast of Falyndar opposite of Riverfall on The Suvan Sea. [Syka Codex]

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Postby Alwyn Seapearl on March 28th, 2018, 4:38 am

The 30th Day of Spring 518 AV

Alwyn was the sort that hated the jungle but liked the beach and loved the sea that Syka claimed as its own. So the fact that he took time and trapaised through what little bit of foliage to the commuity pool really spoke to what he'd heard about it. While he'd never been bothered by the cold of the sea, even embraced it every time he'd dived into the waters, he wondered what warm water felt like.

Which was, admittedly, something that gave him a decent chuckle as the pools came into sight. He'd never stepped foot into any bit of warm water, touched it, much less swam in it. He went in with honestly low expectations, as land-dwellers often liked very odd things, very uncomfortable things. Like thick, blasted-to-Hai jungles that seemed to grow in every corner of Syka. Which only made sense for a jungle-side settlement, but was still rather annoying.

The pools were blissfully empty when he entered the area. He liked these moments of solitude when he could get them in Syka, despite the fact that he'd been alone for so long. He walked towards the smooth water, crouched down, and dipped a hand in.

It was a pleasant warmth that spread up his wrist to his forearm but no higher. It wasn't much but it was enough for him to want to fully submerge himself into the heated waters. He stood and walked towards a decently large rock that sat near the falls. It was far enough away from it that all of the clothes he removed and set atop it wouldn't get wet, and close enough that he could swim anywhere in the pool and not lose sight of them.

And swim he did. The heat of the pools relaxed him to a point he'd never really known, spreading throughout his quite tired muscles. Still, he moved, as he'd never been one to sit still for long. His strokes were slow: his fingers spread apart as his arms went out in front of him, then closed and formed paddles that propelled him forward when he pushed them back.
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Alwyn Seapearl
sailing the great blue sea....
 
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Please Don't Splash

Postby Nya Winters on March 29th, 2018, 2:52 am

\


The Forest Cat had been hunting. Having acquired at taste for tapir, Nya loved to hunt them. They were actually easy to kill, if one could get between them and the water they were always lunging for. In water, they were more graceful and slippery, hard for her to get her claws into. But if she could cut them off while they were bolting blindly for the supposed safety of the river, she could take one down.

The morning was spent patiently stalking them. Belly down, letting the underbrush camouflage her, Nya selected a young fat male, one that wouldn’t impact the overall herd that was out there, and quietly and slowly cut him off from the others. Then, when she’d ran out of patience and felt he was far enough from the water, she’d just surged up and closed the difference, pouncing. He’d zig zagged through the underbrush, moving faster than she’d thought possible. And just when she thought she’d lose him, he ran straight into a bunch of vines that halted his forward motion and she was on him. Pouncing, breaking his neck cleanly, and then hoisting up the big carcass… Nya carefully took him down to the water where she neatly gutted him in her cat shape, left the offal for others, and hefted up the rest of the meat and began carrying it back to the settlement.

Because she was covered in blood, Nya decided she’d eat by the Bathing Pools and then take advantage of the bathing pools to wash away the blood before she headed home. So the Forest Cat hefted her meal, bunched her muscles, and hauled the tapir’s body along the trail until she came to the bathing pool. Stepping into the clearing, the massive Forest Cat dropped the kill, sniffed the air, and spotted the lone swimmer in the pool.

Hrm. She didn’t know him, which was a surprise.

Male. Naked. Swimming in the pool, Nya noted his pile of clothing and dragged her kill over to the stone next to the pile of clothes and laid down, where she began to slowly and diligently eat her meal. Roughly the size of a warhorse with fur that was brindled with the colors of the jungle, Nya watched the man relaxing in the pool with large green eyes that remained calm and vigilant. She ate the head of the tapir first, enjoying the crunch of its skull and the soft sweetness of its brains. No one in the settlement wanted the head anyhow, and if it filled her up, she’d have the rest of the corpse to share with anyone that hadn’t hunted today. She liked eating bones too, though the skull proved too much and she carefully set aside the jaw and cranium after she’d broken into it and ate out all the tender bits. The crunching of her jaws often cleaned her teeth and gave her smile a nice shine if she ate smaller bones.

Nya kept watching the man.

The man was fit. Nya liked watching him slowly swim through the water, relaxed and seemingly enjoying the warmth. She chewed off a forequarter of the tapir and began swallowing the fatty meat, licking her lips and taking time to gnaw on its leg bone before she started on the other forequarter. She didn’t chew up the big leg bones but set them aside with the remains of the jaw and skull. By the fullness in her stomach, Nya knew she’d have at least half the tapir left. She could take it to the commons and share it out there. The Kelvic was careful with the skin, peeling it back from the body before she took the food beneath. She was more than willing to save it to tan and make more leather out of. She wondered if the man was hungry. It would take her next to nothing to start a fire and roast some of her kill for him.

When the man noticed her, she’d offer him a bloody toothy smile, feeling friendly.


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Nya Winters
Let the winds in my heart blow...
 
Posts: 750
Words: 784686
Joined roleplay: June 7th, 2009, 6:53 am
Location: Syka
Race: Kelvic
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Medals: 5
Trailblazer (1) Never Say Die (1)
Donor (1) 2017 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1)
2017 Top NaNo Word Count (1)

Please Don't Splash

Postby Alwyn Seapearl on March 31st, 2018, 3:17 am

Alwyn damn near pissed himself when the freakishly large feline moved into his, dragging along the corpse of some rather odd, rather fat creature. If he'd taken the time to get a good look at the body, he wouldn't have been able to identify it, but he was far too busy staring at the monstrously huge cat to pay much attention.

Made of sterner stuff, Alwyn merely slowed his pace in the water to very slow strokes. He inched as far away from the creature as he possibly could, up until his back pressed against the smoothed sides of the pool. The water had soaked his hair, which made it stick to his head and face. Anyone close enough could see the shake in his hand as he wiped his hair and wetness away from his eyes.

He'd never been much of an animal person. He loved all of Laviku's creations, as any true-blooded Svefra would, but he never took the time to understand them in any capacity. He'd never had a Tavan, either, which only stressed his lack of knowledge on the subject, which only stressed him even more. Further, he was far from the ocean. Too far to die in Laviku's realm, which caused an antsy jitter to tickle at his mental. The tiger (lion?) bared its teeth at him, which seemed to only further his thinking he'd die in these shite pools, which didn't sit right in his gut.

The nude man turned, momentarily, to hoist himself up and over the ledge, his torso smacking the stone rather wetly. As soon as he was out of the water, he scrambled to turn back around and get to his feet at the same time. His eyes locked on the eating creature as he remained crouched near the edge of the pool, dripping.

He could tell it was at least somewhat intelligent. It didn't crunch and gnaw and smash at the corpse as he'd witnessed other creatures do. It... Set whole pieces aside in a small and extraordinarily neat pile. It actually peeled the skin back from the meat with enough skill that it could still be saved and used for later, which would have made Al laugh in a slightly nutty craze if he didn't feel like he was going to die.

He took a step away from the pool and looked around. He aimed to grab his clothes and foot it back to his ship, up until he realized where everything now was. The cat ate its meal next to his clothes, which seemed to remain still in such a mocking manner. And his only clothes, which meant he'd be hardpressed to get more if he went to a market with his bits swinging about.

Oh, how he wished he could break something. He liked breaking things when he was angry, and he was quite angry, for some reason. Angry enough to step back a bit more, a bit farther from the feline. He looked at the ground and searched for... Well, he searched for anything he could use. The closest seemed to be a slightly thin, slightly wet stick, which appeared to be his only choice at this junction. It was swishy and would make quite the noise when smacked against the ground.

With stick in hand, he started to move slowly towards the creature. "I don't feel like-". He stopped when he realized how shaky his voice was. "Ahem," he cleared his throat as if it was the problem. He took a deep breath and shouted, which was a fairly effective attempt to make his voice sound a bit stronger. "GET THE PETCH AWAY FROM MY CLOTHES OR I'LL KNOCK YOUR WHISKERS BACK, YOU- YOU PUSSY-CAT!"

At least he could die naked and pseudo-bravely, instead of nakedly and obviously afraid.
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Alwyn Seapearl
sailing the great blue sea....
 
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Joined roleplay: March 16th, 2018, 11:13 pm
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Postby Nya Winters on March 31st, 2018, 10:19 pm



Nya tended to forget not everyone recognized Kelvics when they saw them. She was so comfortable in her catskin here in Syka that she never thought much of being a ‘cat’ instead of being a ‘woman’. She was something of a protector of Syka and definitely a provider, so no one paid her much mind. Moody when hungry, she was often feeding to keep up with the energy requirements of shifting forms and feeding an other half that was roughly the size of a large horse.

She didn’t notice the man shaking nor did she really recognize that he moved away from her. She did notice when he climbed out of the water and gave him an appreciative purr. Nya liked humans that took care of their bodies, keeping them fit and well muscled. This man was no different. And because of his shape she respected him. His crouch didn’t alarm her. Instead she watched him with interest as he watched her. She’d long since set the meat aside and was busy grooming the blood out of her fur in preparation of a swim to clean the rest she couldn’t easily get with her tongue. Forest green eyes watched him unblinkingly as she snorted the smell of the kill out of her nose and drank in his scent. Nya had sharp vision, but her sense of smell was even better. Clean male. She glanced over her shoulder at his pile of clothing and sniffed that as well. It gave a better picture of who he was. Salt. Sand. Man. The Kelvic smiled toothily.

What confused Nya was why the man suddenly looked…. Angry? She blinked in surprise and tilted her head freezing mid-lick. She slowly pulled her tongue back in from where it was scrubbing a foreleg and sat up a little straighter. Was that a … stick? Was he going to come beat her with a stick? The cat snorted again, flicked her ears, and her tail whipped back and forth in her surprise. Then she realized…

His anger concealed fear. He didn’t understand she wasn’t wild, wasn’t here to hurt him, and was just eating where she could bathe. He didn’t even understood she’d set part of her kill aside in case he wanted some or someone else in the settlement needed to eat tonight and hadn’t had time to hunt. The cat started to rise and as she did so she dissolved in a swirl of colored lights. The lights rose up, changed volume and shape, and reformed into the shape of a woman that solidified in an instant.

She didn’t have a stitch of clothing on either. Young, perhaps 5’7”, fit but scarred over her heart and stomach, the woman had long brindled hair the same color of the cat – russet, green, brown, and black. There was a wildness about her. She moved with a feline grace and turned, scooping up the neat pile of clothing, careful not to get blood on it and took a careful step around the pile of meat and bones. She held it out to him, as if offering it to him.

The woman looked delicate compared to him now that they both looked human. Though still thin, Nya had filled out since coming to Syka, the hollows of her half-starved form filling out and her skin tanning darkly. She was glad he was seeing her without clothing after months in the sun with fresh fruit and really great meat. Before he’d have just thought her sickly. A year in prison in Ravok had done a number on her. Here things were better. Here she was even learning to be social again.


“Here. My name is Nya. I wasn’t going to take them. I just came to eat part of my kill and clean up. It’s easier here, near the water, than eating somewhere, dragging the meat around, then having to try and clean off crusted blood.” She said, approaching him and setting his clothing down and backing away from it. She kept a wary eye on his stick, but otherwise didn’t seem afraid of him.

“Most of the time we don’t even bother with clothing unless we are going into the jungle. The heat is oppressive and we stick by the sea because of the breeze and the cooling waters. No one would say a thing if you washed these and left them here to dry. No one would take them either.” No decent Svefra would probably call Syka’s warm waters ‘cooling’ but in the extreme heat of midday, sometimes the water did feel far more refreshing than even the wind through the palms, especially in the humid steam-infused air of the jungle.

“If you’re hungry, I can start a fire and cook some of it for you.” She said softly, studying the newcomer. “It tastes a lot like horse or pig. It’s a tapir and we eat a lot of it here.” Nya added, moving backwards from the Svefra, eyes glancing warily at his stick. “You don’t need that. I didn’t threaten you at all.” She said softly, wondering if he was one of those men that liked hitting things with sticks. Nya wanted to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but anger was anger and she didn’t know if it was driven by fear or surprise which in her book was the only excuse for such things.


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Nya Winters
Let the winds in my heart blow...
 
Posts: 750
Words: 784686
Joined roleplay: June 7th, 2009, 6:53 am
Location: Syka
Race: Kelvic
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Plotnotes
Medals: 5
Trailblazer (1) Never Say Die (1)
Donor (1) 2017 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1)
2017 Top NaNo Word Count (1)

Please Don't Splash

Postby Alwyn Seapearl on April 9th, 2018, 1:02 am

He watched warily as the giant cat got to her feet. His movement stopped entirely as he held his breath and waited. Had he known exactly what was going to happen, his heart wouldn't have been racing, and time wouldn't have seemed to slow down around him. He wouldn't even have a stick in his hand, ready to defend himself from nothing at all.

He gasped as a swirl of light motes took away the great creature and in its place stood a girl. Smaller than himself, much smaller than the cat, and as naked as he was. The transformation startled him so strongly that he tripped over his own feet in an attempt to move back farther. He landed on his bum with a grunt, and the stick clattered to the ground from the shock of the change and the shock of the impact.

Where he usually would have loved to be alone with a quite attractive (and nude) woman, this time he was stunned. His eyes seemed to swirl with confusion and a healthy amount of fearful wariness. He wasn't a stranger to some magics, but this was on a level he'd never been privy to. Even if he was, he would have probably acted nearly the same way, as a healthy fear of the arcane is what made survivors.

Alwyn watched her with a stitched brow, his expression set in the anger he'd displayed before. His hand reached for the stick even as she walked forward with his own clothes in hands, even as she held them out and then set them down in front of him.

He got to his feet as she said her name and her intentions. She held a confidence that neither threatened him nor made him overly trusting. That would have been stupid. But still, her own eased movements and lack of anger or fear in her voice did play a part in his own feelings of calm.

The sheer length of time he had gone without removing his eyes from her bordered on creepy, yet he showed no signs of feeling odd about staring her down. He picked up his clothes and simply held them as he stared, unblinking. If she could glance into his mind, she'd find a whirl of thoughts that lasted almost a chime longer than when she had finished speaking.

"Alwyn," he responded gruffly. He still seemed angry at being scared so terribly. The Svefra realized easily that the woman had given him his own clothes in a peace offering, yet he still brushed past her and set them exactly where they'd been, albeit a little farther from the meat and remaining tapir than before.

He seemed comfortable in both of their nakedness, far from a blithering idiot many landlubber men would become from being so close to a beautiful and clothes-less woman. It would be a lie if he said he didn't stir at all, but it didn't stop his eyes from staring into her own yet again. If she was any good at reading expressions and silent emotions, she'd find that he wasn't as scared as he was curious and wary. "What are you? I've never seen someone turn into human from a... Big cat," he asked and stated in his basic Common, which conveniently lacked an apology and ignored her offer of food.

As he waited for her response, his eyes finally left her own and down to the meat near his feet. He bent down and grabbed a slab of meat and sniffed it. It smelled fresh and raw, like it'd make for something good. He'd lived on a diet primarily of sea creatures, so he couldn't easily try and think about the taste of horse or a pig, but he could guess. "Tapir," he repeated to himself. He walked closer to her until she was within arms reach and held it out to her.

"Cook some of it for you. Ahem," he coughed as he quickly realized his mistake as he copied what she offered. "Me." He figured if she tried to offer peace with his own property, he'd do the same. And get a meal out of it, to boot.
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Alwyn Seapearl
sailing the great blue sea....
 
Posts: 10
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Joined roleplay: March 16th, 2018, 11:13 pm
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Please Don't Splash

Postby Nya Winters on April 22nd, 2018, 4:00 pm



Nya nodded when he gave her his name. It was a turning point, almost, though she could see he still hadn’t made up his mind about her. Her lips quirked a little almost into a smile as he stubbornly set his clothing back where it had been… as if to emphasize she shouldn’t be touching his stuff. She followed the movements of his body, watching the way he walked and noting his stride. She liked the way the curve of his back met his buttocks and the strength he showed in his motions. There was very little weak about the man. Nor was his skin pasty from disassociation with the sun. Syna, no matter what else she was to him, was not a stranger.

“I’m one of The Kashac. We are rangers here in Syka. We cut trails and guard the settlement from those that aren’t as strong or need guarding. I’m the main snake hunter in The Commons and I like to find the lost and escort people into the Jungle that know little of it. The Founders employ us as protectors. You are safe with me for I am not a threat to you if you are of Syka.” Nya said, deliberately misunderstanding what he said. By his expression though, she could tell what she was saying wasn’t exactly answering his question. Then she realized he asked about her two different forms.

“I’m also a Kelvic. We look human but are not. We were a crafted race, long before the Valterrian, made to be servants and helpers and guardians. We have two forms we can move between. One is always human and others are often a wide variety of things. There are three other cat Kelvics here in Syka. Cats thrive in this area. We like the heat and all the food… all the bugs and mice and birds to chase and game to hunt. My sister Kelvics are smaller. One is a lion and one is a Howlwing, which is like a house cat with wings. Kelvics are all over. Some even like the Sea and can take the form of dolphins and whales.” He looked Svefra. The wild hair and smell of the sea about his clothing, not to mention his way of speaking, gave a lot of that away. “Kelvics need to serve people. It is designed into our blood. Often one of us will pick a human and bond with them and serve them all of our lives. Our bondmates desires become our own and we grow…. More human having a bondmate. I am unbonded.” She said, pushing her mass of brindled hair out of her eyes and shoving it behind an ear. Some slipped free again unwanted, but the majority gave him a clear view of her face. She looked in her twenties, though there were lines to her face that told of a hard life.

Her body should have been lovely too, but it was crisscrossed with scars. There were deep scars over her abdomen and directly over her heart that made one of her breasts look slightly smaller than the other. She’d seen fighting and it had left scars on her. The same was true of her back, which held deep whip scars where it looked like multiple times she’d had most of the meat taken off her back before it healed.

When Alwyn picked up the meat, Nya nodded. She left him there holding the meat while she gathered some wood. “I’ll be back. We need wood for a fire.” She said and vanished into the underbrush around the Bathing Pools. She was back a few chimes later, a huge pile of wood in her arms, which she immediately set down in what looked like an old fire ring. She pulled dried grasses, big clumps of it up around where the pool was, and then neatly tented the wood over the pile of tinder she’d formed. Then, pulling forth a flint and steel from a loose necklace around her neck, she struck it to stone and sparks flared up to where she could coax them into a blaze. Before long she had a neat fire going, tight and hot, perfect for cooking some of the meat.

Then, she disappeared back into the brush, broke off saplings of appropriate size when she found them, and brought them back to the fire. Once there, she collected the meat, skewered it on the flexible sapling, and drove the sapling into the ground next to the fire so the meat would cook on the wood, roasting, as the fire burned.

“It won’t take long…. Twenty chimes or so…. I’ll watch it… and you’ll have some nice tapir roast. It’s very good… greasy but delicious.” She said, taking that moment to jump into the water to both cool off and wash off. She was bloody, dirty, and wanted to soak in the warm waters after her work in the jungle.

When she had thoroughly rinsed, she came up for air near where Alwyn was, and tried out a question or two on him to see if he was receptive to telling her a bit about himself. “I assume you are Svefra. Are you here to stay or just visiting and trading with the settlement?” She asked, curious about him. Meanwhile, Nya was running her hands down her arms, rubbing at the mud and blood, and scratching at her now wet hair. She’d brought no soap, which annoyed her, so she was doing the best she could to get clean without it.

User avatar
Nya Winters
Let the winds in my heart blow...
 
Posts: 750
Words: 784686
Joined roleplay: June 7th, 2009, 6:53 am
Location: Syka
Race: Kelvic
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Plotnotes
Medals: 5
Trailblazer (1) Never Say Die (1)
Donor (1) 2017 Mizahar NaNo Winner (1)
2017 Top NaNo Word Count (1)


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