The Journey Home (Solo)

[Siiri]

Timestamp: Sometime in the middle of Winter, 510 AV
Location: Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Eyktol

The cold night wind blew, biting and vicious in its chill, and it forced Siiri to hug her cloak a little tighter around herself, taking care not to unbalance the sleeping girl leaning on her back. The Myrian had tied the arms of her bondmate around her waist to prevent her from falling but the Kelvic was dead tired from the trials of the day and had dozed off almost immediately as soon as they had set off that evening. Siiri herself was fighting off the tempting pull of slumber, reminding herself that she had to keep a lookout for any approaching hostiles in the vast, featureless dunes of the endless desert. Their guide, some nomad whose name Siiri could not even pronounce, could not be depended on as he was completely incompetent when it came to defending himself and his family.

They were in no man's land, trodding through seldom traveled roads, and oftentimes forging paths of their own through the shifting sands. Avoiding the caravan trails, not that there were any anywhere near them, meant they avoided ambush spots frequented by marauders, but that also meant they were prone to getting lost. Or stumbling blindly into lairs of wild beasts. Or, yes, still getting beset by raiders who were lucky enough to run into them - those inconveniences they were trying to avoid by not taking the usual roads.

But the nomad had sworn that he knew his way around, even in the dark, and would get them to their destination, Yahebah, as soon as possible. Siiri did not believe him of course, but what choice did she have? She could not begin to tell where north and south was, nor east and west, in the middle of the desert. Leth's position in the sky did not appear to have shifted any from where He had been an hour ago and the formation of the stars seemed different here than in Falyndar. Not that anyone used those to tell directions in the jungle, not under that thick canopy anyway. But Siiri had heard bits from the sailors on the boat she had taken before that some peoples actually used those small twinkling dots in the sky to determine the different points of the compass. Of course, she didn't pay enough attention to glean any useful information then.

Just like she wasn't paying any attention to their guide as he chattered with his mate and child. The man never seemed to stop talking, yammering on and on and on the moment the Myrian met him. He alternated between conversing with his family in their native tongue and switching to Common to reassure Siiri that they would but their journey time in half by taking his 'shortcut'. Siiri was tempted to tell him to shut up else the attract unwanted attention, like she had told him half a dozen times before, but she knew he would only be silent for five minutes before his mouth started yapping again. Besides, she was too tired to make the effort. If he brought marauders into their path because of his big mouth, then so be it. At least they would shoot him first.

It won't be the first time he got into trouble because of his constant chatter, that's for sure, Siiri thought sleepily, recalling the instance of their meeting...

[Siiri]

Timestamp: Earlier that day

Early morning.

The sky was still dark but was beginning to brighten, the first of Syna's rays peeking over from the horizon. Two figures, unwashed and unkempt, staggered through the desert sands, freezing from the cold temperatures from the previous night but already dreading the coming of dawn for the oppressive heat and blinding glare it would bring. They were desperately searching for shelter before the merciless sun to the sky and charbroiled them over the desert sands.

Siiri and Miharu had been living off the land for who knew how long, ever since their daring escape from the underground city - no, prison - that was Hai. They had been forced to subsist on whatever they could get their hands on, from dark red berries of a dried up bush (which turned out to be poisonous and had Siiri throwing up violently for days), to desert creatures like owls, coyotes and even rattlesnakes when they were fortunate enough to find one. Miharu would devour everything raw in her wolf form, able to chew the toughest of meat with her powerful jaws. Siiri, not bothering to tenderize or cook it, followed suit, gulping down strips of flesh she had pared off with her knife. During times when they ran low on water and with no oasis in sight, both settled with the blood of their catch, never letting a drop go to waste.

The end result had them both looking worse than savages, with Siiri seeming like something out of a nightmare, armed to the teeth with her hair in disarray, her whole body covered in dried blood and wearing patches of fur, feathers and scales from the hides of the beasts they had slain. Flies would have clouded around them if those insects could survive the desert heat. But chances were, Siiri would have eaten them too just to survive.

Smoke, a sign of a campfire, had led them to the direction where they traveled to at the moment. A campsite meant that there would be people, and more importantly, food, water and shelter. The two of them needed those things right now. More than anything. And if whoever occupied the campsite did not have any of those or refused to share them, well, they could serve as food themselves and Siiri would just have to make a tent out of their skins for herself and her bondmate to hide in as they let the day's heat pass.

Miharu had sped on ahead, acting as scout in her wolf form despite Siiri's insistence that they stay together. Hunger, and the need to find sustenance for her mistress, drove the girl onward. Siiri could only run after her with her tired and sore feet. Her spear she used as a third leg, planting it before her and then propelling herself forward. The campsite was close, Siiri could already hear voices.

Screaming, punctuated by sobs and protests.

The Myrian frowned. Something was wrong. Her senses suddenly sharpening, Siiri suddenly seemed to transform. From a road-weary traveler, whose every shift of the body seemed to pain her, she became more alert, her movements becoming more crisp, sharper. Her body still hurt but it was as if some lever in her brain had been pulled, allowing her to momentarily ignore her discomforts as she focused on the situation at hand as only a true warrior could.

As silently yet as quickly as she could, Siiri weaved her way between several strange, lanky creatures and crept behind a large, ruined tent, her greatsword in hand replacing the spear-turned-walking-stick which she had discarded a few steps back. Miharu was nowhere in sight but that did not bother her. The Kelvic knew how to take care of herself. Siiri concentrated on making her way towards the sound of voices, which seemed to be on the other side of the obstructing tent. There were several, each one speaking in the language native to the land and one she could not understand.

One voice sounded meek, speaking incessantly as if to protest, only to be shouted at by another, more forceful voice. Siiri assumed the first was being told to shut up. There were intermittent sobbing in between the two voices. Briefly, she wondered what the whole altercation was about, but then she shook her head. She certainly won't find out just hiding there. Boldly, she strode out from behind the tent, her weapon brandished and ready to strike.

What she saw made her blood boil.

[Siiri]

Two greasy-looking men, whose state of clothes and hygiene made them look no better off than Siiri herself, were threatening with their weapons a man and child - the owners of the tent and the implements scattered about the campsite, the Myrian guessed. They looked to be father and daughter if their similarly beaked noses were any indication. Their aggressors had them separated; the one with the long sword had his blade pointed at the heart of the man, who as kneeling on the ground. To Siiri's practiced eye, he seemed to have been weeping and begging mercy from the two bandits.

She thought she knew why.

The other bandit towered over the prone girl, had a wicked dagger in one hand and, to Siiri's disgust, undoing the knots of the rope that served as a belt to hold up his loose pants with his other hand. He seemed intent on imposing his will on the girl, who looked like she had barely seen ten winters. Siiri saw red then, appalled at the sick passions of these human scum. She growled, announcing her presence and disapproval, and, without waiting to ask questions or give any warning, she charged.

The men had been stunned at her appearance, and even the father and child paused long enough in their pitiful cries to stare at her with their mouths open like hooked fish. She must have looked like a she-demon to them, all filthy with her wild hair, loose from the neat cornrows she always sported, and the hodgepodge animal hides she used as makeshift articles of clothing. And the numerous weapons bristling on almost every part of her body, all of them crusted over with dried blood. Using their momentary distraction, she leaped at the bandits, getting in hits she otherwise would not gotten on prepared opponents.

The closest one, the one with the sword stuck out and pointed at the kneeling man, Siiri severed the arm just below the elbow, slamming Slayer down to part flesh and shatter bone with a two-handed overhead chop. The keen blade sheared the appendage cleanly. Blood spurting out of the wound, the bandit clutched the stump close to his chest, a look of horror stamped on his face.

Siiri knew he was out of the fight.

The Myrian turn to the man's companion and shot him a glare so full of vehemence that the villain seemed to turn to stone on the spot, like a deer freezing before the tiger's eyes as it beheld its doom. He offered only an ineffectual parry as Siiri stabbed her greatsword into his gut, violently running the full length of it into the man until she could thrust it in no further because of the parrying hooks. The man's legs had given out by then and he had fallen to his knees but Siiri, her bloodlust not yet sated, was not done. Pulling out one of her serrated daggers from its scabbard on her thigh, the Myrian pulled the man up by the lapel of his shirt so that they were face to face and pressed the weapon against his neck.

"You will remember," she said through clenched teeth, "To never treat females, especially children, that way again."

And then she ran the teethed edge of her blade against the body part the man had intended to use to violate the girl.

The man screamed.

[Siiri]

Siiri waited a full chime as she watched the man clutch at his nether regions and scream his heart out before re-sheathing her dagger. By then, her victim's cries had taken on a higher note and was beginning to grate on her nerves. In one fluid motion, she yanked her greatsword out of his gut (causing him to choke in mid-shriek) and, spinning the massive weapon over her head, brought it down in a diagonal slash. The man's head left his shoulders, rolling on the ground to settle on the foot of his companion, the bandit that Siiri disarmed - literally. That one seemed to be slowly bleeding to death. He was on his back, his bloody stump wrapped in his robes, staining them red. His efforts did not halt the gradual pumping of his lifeblood however.

When he felt the severed head bump his foot, and subsequently saw the fearsome Myrian turn her baleful gaze upon him, he shrank back, trying to shoulder-crawl away from her wrath. But he was too weak now and all he accomplished were pitiful wiggles on the sandy earth. Siiri was upon him in three quick steps, slamming her boot on his wound, pinning him in place. That elicited a groan from his lips and, when he saw Siiri draw her sword back to deliver the killing blow, squeezed his eyes shut.

But the blow never came.

The bandit must have wondered about that for he opened his eyes to see what had so still the sword arm of the barbarian woman. He did so right in time to see the Myrian's mace descending to cave open his skull. There was a white-hot explosion in his head and then everything went black.

Siiri squatted over the bandit's still twitching corpse and began to feast on his brains, using one of her many daggers to scoop up the gray matter. She was famished. All the while her eyes never left the father and daughter tandem whom she apparently had just rescued. The man had a deathgrip on his girl now, shielding her from the gruesome sight. His eyes shifted from the sky to Siiri and then back again as he muttered non-stop under his breath. Siiri thought the man was praying when she heard him utter 'Yahal', a name she had discovered earlier to belong to one of the more popular gods of the native human populace of the regions. Idly, she wondered if he was casting a curse upon her.

She didn't care, not until she's had her fill of meat.

After she's finished emptying the bandit's brain cavity, Siiri moved to extract the heart to offer to her own goddess. Plunging her dagger up to the hilt in the middle of the corpse's chest, she twisted it and the sound of cracking bone and popping cartilage filled the air. The man's prayers rose up in tempo and his daughter had begun to sob in his arms. Siiri ignored them both as she tried to recall where her bondmate had gone to.

She needed Miharu by her side.

She couldn't possibly finish all this meat by herself now, could she?

[Siiri]

Timestamp: Back in the present (same day, evening)

It had turned out that Mihari gone to the other side of the camp where another one of the bandits was having his way with the man's wife. The woman had put up a struggle despite the threat of a blade in her oppressor's hand. This had given Miharu the opportunity to sneak up to them and, before the man knew it, the wolf girl had torn out his throat with her powerful canine jaws.

The small family had been grateful of course, that is, they were after they got over their fear of the cannibalistic foreigner and her shapeshifting companion. The man introduced himself as Someone, from the tents of Someone Else, of the sons of Another Person... it was truly a mouthful, one Siiri could not hope to remember and she had decided to just call them Nomad Male, Nomad Female and Little Nomad, for the man, his wife and his child respectively. In exchange for saving them from the marauders, the man had agreed to guide them back to the city of Yahebah. But first Siiri had asked that she and Miharu be allowed to rest in their tent first. The man easily agreed as long as he was allowed to wake the both of them should more bandits arrive. Fortunately, no other came after the first group and the two were at last able to get their first real rest in weeks. That is, after they had helped put the ruined tents back up.

When Siiri awoke, it was late afternoon and she found that the man and his family had been productive while they were sleeping. They had cleaned up the campsite and had even stripped the dead of any useful items. These they loaded on the creatures ridden by the raiders themselves. Tall and lanky, with twin humps on their backs, Siiri found out from the nomads that they were called 'camels' and that they were fine mounts, able to last much longer in the desert without water than horses. She had also discovered that they had foul temperaments, or at least the one she and Miharu were supposed to ride did.

The biggest of the lot, it had a shaggy coat similar to a Kisthkin except it was dark brown and rather course to the touch. Being her first time riding such things, Siiri had gone about riding it clumsily, her movements ungentle. She must have done something to set the creature off, for when she finally settled onto its back, it turned around to look at her and, without warning, spat a goopy mess smack in the middle of her face.

Livid, Siiri jumped off the creature's back and yanked at its reins. The camel tried to pull back but the Myrian was the stronger in her rage. She cocked her fist back and before anyone could stop her, slugged the camel once, twice, thrice on its flappy-lipped jaw, dropping it to the ground. She would have severed its head from its body too had the nomad not gotten in the way between her and the poor creature. His tone panicked, the man reminded her that it would be much easier to travel the desert with a mount than on foot. Even the man's wife joined in to calm her, urging her to take her's and her child's own mount instead, a much docile beast. Siiri relented, but not after much cursing.

That short incident had delayed their journey a good half hour, the nomad taking his time to revive the camel and help it recover enough to be able to stand and walk on its own before they were able to proceed. And several hours later, with the whole land dark and the cold night wind blowing and chilling their bones, and with nothing but Leth's light to guide them, Siiri found herself nodding groggily on her new mount's back, the tired Miharu already asleep behind her.

She knew they couldn't reach Yahebah soon enough. She just hoped the rest of the days of their journey would come by more smoothly than this day had.

-fin-

[Colombina]

The XP Wand Is Waved! Oh that lovable Myrian, she never knows quite what to do in social situations! Another enormously violent and downright funny thread. I’m surprised there aren’t more camel showdowns in Eyktol, they are rather nasty creatures. But one note, if you keep eating all this uncooked meat, I swear your next lore will be "The devastating effects of a tapeworm". Siiri's Loot 2 XP Sword 1 XP Mace 1 XP Wilderness survival Lore of the temperament of camels Lore of Benshiran tents Lore of Desert weather Colombina is pleased.