Closed Wrath Meets Lust

[Raif]

35th of Fall, 512 AV

Clouds rolled in from the western ranges capped by white snow, leaving an overcast sky to blanket the valley Raif found himself trailing through at midday. The scent of pine needles clung heavily to the autumn air, sharpened by the hint of winter‘s chill that descended from the peaks down into the basin itself. Every square mile was saturated by evergreens and mangled brush, with only a few areas collecting pools of water where the elevation was lowest. Dried needles blanketed the earthen floor like soft tangerine velvet, hushing the footfalls of the scrupulous hunter whose body was bent and bow was poised.

Earlier in the day Raif had seen a sizable herd of what appeared to be Takan descend into the valley a few miles away from where he and Zibas soared. The hunting duo had arrived too late for the giant raptor to pluck one from the earth, however, and the thick forest did well to hinder the eagle‘s ability to make a clean kill. So, as Raif was wont to do when opportunity beckoned, he’d descended from his dear friend’s back and struck out into the forest by himself, a small pouch of dried jerky along with his water skin the only source for nourishment.

The Endal’s fur-lined clothes consisted of muted grays and greens stained with dirt, staving off the cold that would otherwise be slowly whittling away at his senses and exposing him to dangers other than the fauna of The Unforgiving. The hood of his katinu however, was drawn back across his shoulders so that he might hear better, his crimson mop dulled to sable strands by the gray light peaking through the bristled boughs above. Every step he took was carefully planned, even though the execution left much to be desired. Still, hunting Takan was not like hunting an Alkana. Herd mentality meant they would be moving slow, foraging for grasses that hadn’t been withered by the frosts. These things took time, and gave the hunter a chance to play catch up.

Stepping towards a small gap between two white pines, Raif’s ears prickled to the sudden sound of a hefty snort resonating from thirty yards off to his left. Turning his gaze slowly so as not to startle his surroundings, the Endal pivoted his entire body with excruciating sluggishness until he came to face what looked to be a bull. The creature’s head was dipped towards the earth, snout pushing across dried needles as it breathed heavily for traces of growth. It felt like a good omen that the Endal had not been spotted, his knee planting steadily into the ground as he stretched his bow out before him. The arrow he’d knocked against the string was ever-so-carefully pulled back, yew wood creaking gently against the pressure of the draw. The gap that separated them was not hindered by much, only the decaying trunk of a fern cause for concern as Raif had to raise his aim slightly to ensure a strike to its vital organs.

Now, he just had to wait for a clear shot.

[Aidara]

If it starts to snow, you better come back for me! Calling after Sira as she launched back into the air, pulling herself above the trees with strong beats from those great wings, Addy watched the Wind Eagle soar away out of sight before she turned her attention to the clearing where she had been dropped off. A heavy cloth sack rested by her feet, the medium sized animal traps clanking about within as the sharp wind blew fitfully across the small open space.

The two women had decided to part ways to start, the setting up and baiting of the traps was a one person job, after all, and that left Sira free to try her luck in a different part of the forest. Addy tried not to let her feelings get in the way of duty, the Kelvic woman’s eagerness to go off on her own and possibly bring back a large kill for the city only stinging a bit… or so Addy told herself.

It was fine. The clanking of her metal traps would send any animal within hearing distance bolting in the other direction, making the pray scarce indeed, but Sira didn’t have to be so anxious to fly away without her, leaving the saddle and all their gear in the clearing with the healer. The tall grasses reached up to her waist and totally obscured the packs from sight; it was safe to leave them there hidden as they were.

Hoisting the heavy sack with both hands, Addy threw the clunky thing over her shoulder, bowing under the weight, and started forward towards the darkened tree line in front of her, pushing the negative thoughts that plagued her to the back of her mind and locking them in a neat little box there. Struggling as she tromped through the thick grass, a strong burst of wind nearly took the woman to her feet, the clamoring from the traps as the bag caught her center of balance and nearly pulled her over echoed loudly through the relative quiet of the forest.

I can here you from here, Addy. Though Sira tried to keep the scolding from her tone, Addy knew it for what it was and immediately felt her cheeks begin to flush. No response was offered to her bondmate as the little woman managed to stay on her feet, righting herself and shifting the bag of traps more securely onto her shoulder. With her lips set into a grim and determined line, Addy stalked towards the trees and left the forest behind, disappearing in the shadow that were only enhanced by the overcast day.

The path was easy to follow, the clearing a popular landing spot for the Wind Eagles who dropped their Endal off within the Unforgiving. It would be easiest to find her traps again should she leave them in the bushes and thickets beside the paths, but Addy knew enough about hunting to realize that the game would be smart enough by now to avoid the area so frequented by the Inarta; those who weren’t smart enough were already dead.

Finding a pair of small trees that seemed to hold off the thicket on either side of their trunks, leaving a space in between them that wasn’t riddled with reaching thorns and brambles, Addy, figuring this was a good a place as any, stepped off the game trail and moved deeper into the woods. Only a few steps in and she felt a sharp tugging at her bryda, cursing softly to herself when she didn’t stop quickly enough and the tearing of fabric filled her ears. The cold wind licked greedily at her newly exposed thigh, raiding goose pimples on the flesh as she tugged and managed to free the ruined fabric from the thorns. “Petching son of a…” Roughly shoving the branches away, Addy managed to leave the thicket behind.

A small scattering of bushes were behind the wall of thorns, low to the ground and thick with leaves that just refused to give into the approaching Winter weather. If she were a small, tasty animal, this is most surely where she would live, protected by the winds from the closely slung branches and from the rest of the weather by the snugly packed tree trunks and a thick canopy of leaves overhead. Lowering her pack to the ground as quietly as she could, Addy loosened the draw and reached in slowly to pull out a metal cage no longer than her forearm.

With doors on either end and a pressure sensitive platter in the middle, all Addy had to do was place a piece of fat in the middle and lock the doors in the upwards position; any animal that moseyed on into the trap to get the food would trigger the platter and send the doors snapping closed behind it. And the best part was that the animal survived, making the retrieval of the traps far less painful for the little healer, who preferred not to do any sort of killing for herself.

Shuffling the trap so that it lingered just out of sight beneath the branches of a bush, Addy plunked the fat down in the trap, pushed herself to her feet, and gathered the pack to swing back over her shoulder. The key was to not place the traps too close together. Animals could smell fear just as well as she could smell when the kitchens were cooking up fresh venison. However, too far apart and the traps were hard to relocate again, especially if left out for a couple days and a certain redheaded healer forgot to mark on her map where she had placed them.

It happened more than once. Addy had gone through a lot of traps.

Brushing aside a low hanging limb, the fiery redhead found herself humming softly under her breath as she cast her gaze about for the next relatively flat piece of ground that she could set up her next trap on. Sira had been driven by her mind once she got lost in the task, her mood lightening considerably as she simply allowed herself to be swallowed by nature. Unfortunately, the good mood that materialized seemed to disrupt the careful attention one should be paying while deep within the Unforgiving.

The root came out of nowhere, viciously tripping Addy as she watched the dark grey clouds scuttle by from between the gaps in the canopy. Positive that she was being attacked, Addy did what she did best: she screamed bloody murder while her little hands fumbled at the waist of her bryda for her dagger, crashing to the ground in a tangle of arms, legs, and the big back of traps. The latter was the worst, the sheer cacophony of sound deafening the woman while simultaneously nearly knocking her unconscious as several traps landed on the back of her head.

“Get off me! Get off me!” Yelling at no one, Addy flailed and tried to regain her feet, which only made everything worse. It wouldn’t be surprising if those still back in Wind Reach could hear the clamor.

x

[Raif]

Time felt stagnant in those agonizing moments, each tick one languid drop into the proverbial bucket, held just long enough for impatience to nip at the numb fingers poised across the white fletching and pearlescent string. Daring not to blink, his chestnut colored eyes maintained their bitter focus, the cold dry air drawing tears to the crests of eyelids that burned like fire to flesh. Raif was determined not to let the perfect moment pass however, where one smooth exhale would lead to that true shot his ego yearned for. All the training, effort, and desire forced him to corral those external forces and zero in on what mattered most: the killing shot.

But then there was that world-altering, breath-stealing, heart-stopping, spirit-crushing scream.

Raif could feel time rushing back like an unexpected swell of icy cold water bearing down on him, the bull's head lifting in alarm and taking an immediate notice that it was not just his herd he was alone in the wilderness with. For the Endal, it was too late to rescind the shot, a gasp of frigid air sucked through gritting teeth as the stranger's piercing yell shattered everything that had once resembled concentration in the hunter's focus. With a feather-soft twang the string snapped back towards the wood, trajectory drifting higher than he'd anticipated as the arrow cleaved through the air in a whispering rush. A pained bestial cry quickly joined the girl's screams much to the hunter's chagrin, his features souring once they'd thoroughly been flooded with surprise.

From the Takan's right eye and embedded deep, the tan shaft and white feathers extended. It was not a wound the hunter would have left standing had circumstance given him the choice of another shot. But the bull was already turning towards the depths of the forest along with the rest of his herd, and a mild sense of guilt would be left to his conscience if he didn't at least pretend to care about the ominous cry. Tossing muffled expletives to deaf ears, Raif's gaze retreated from his escaping quarry towards the sounds of distress.

It didn't take him long at all to find the source, her sputtering screams loud enough for the whole valley to gain audience. Raif had knocked another arrow by the time he wound through the trees to see her, drawing back once he'd registered some peculiar movement that entailed a shock of red hair. If something was attacking her, his eyes could not see it, stalking closer at a quick pace until he was merely a few yards away, ready to fire should something worth his trouble catch his eye.

Disappointment was all the Endal would find, a steep frown muddling the slightest bit of concern he had offered to show. Raif stretched back to his full height once he felt the threat had passed, though he kept his distance as a precaution. Steady hands lent the string back to a restful state, pointing the arrow's tip to the ground where it would remain so long as things quieted down. A quick evaluation of the ground surrounding her revealed several traps scattered around as though she might have wandered onto a nest of them. It was her countenance he gained the most recognition from, a vague sense of familiarity found between the ruffled strands of hair that chaotically splashed around her.

There was hardly a trace of worry to be found in either manner or sound, however. "You owe me a Takan, Dek licker."

[Aidara]

Trapped in her own little panicked, clanging world, Addy was completely unaware of the mans approach, flailing away and scrambling to gain her feet. She had just managed to remove her foot from where it had gotten stuck in one of the traps and was balancing precariously on her knees before pushing to her feet when the cold words bit through her panic.

“Petch!” Auburn locks were still a discordant whirlwind about her face when she whirled to face the voice, green eyes wide in confused surprise. The curse left her lips as the abrupt swivel sent her crashing back down onto her rear end, a yelp and a grunt to follow. With the traps spread all around her, dirt and twigs clinging fast to her hair and a blush riding hard and fast on her sudden embarrassment to color her cheeks a deep crimson, Addy didn’t look anything like the Endal she was supposed to be. Tripping over nothing while alone was bad enough… but now she had an audience.

Anger was the easiest to jump too from the frustration that surged through her, brows diving to knit over her flashing gaze. “I don’t owe you anything, Zith Petcher.” Adrenaline made her knees weak, and so rather than stumble to her feet, Addy lifted her chin, lowered her gaze and carefully began to pick the biggest sticks and clods of dirt from her person. Had he been there the whole time? He at least had to be somewhere nearby for her… accident… to have disrupted his hunting; Addy’s gaze hadn’t missed the strung bow clenched in one hand, the quiver of arrows or the disgruntled expression. Clearly he’d missed his shot.

Try as she might, the smile flickered on her lips for more than a tick or two before she resumed her composure. Such vindictive pleasure wasn’t lady like, for one thing, but neither was the irrational anger at the fact that he had found her at what she considered her weakest moment. “Perhaps you should just aim better next time.” A slight twist of her hips and Addy slithered to her feet with a fair amount of grace most certainly not exhibited a few chimes before, one foot lashing out to kick away one of the metal traps as she did so. It clattered and clanked before banging to a stop against the very root that initially sent her tumbling.

Fixing her clothes so that they hung straight, flicking strands of hair back into their place, Addy watched the disgruntled hunter from beneath her lashes; he had a sort of anger radiating from him, paired with the muscles and the scowl giving him a dangerous sort of appeal, his face handsome beneath the ire. Danger was good, though no recognition tickled her memory. An Avora, then, since most of the Endal she knew by name. Even better. It wasn’t every day that Addy got to put someone in their place, the normally kind little woman preferring to live and let live, but embarrassment and injured pride did wonders to inhibitions.

Before she could really stop herself, Addy had drawn herself up to her full five-foot-nothin’, sliding a step closer to the man so that she could raise and poke a finger against his chest. “I’ll not have you speaking to me like that again, Hunter. Stick to what you’re good at, and go keep some woman’s bed warm.” Her voice was a purr but her eyes flashed as sharply as the finger that stabbed and then retreated back to her side. “Respect your betters.” Yes. That’d show him.

Satisfied now that they had traded an eye for an eye, Addy took the dignity that she had tried to gather around her and turned back to her fallen equipment, bending and scooping the different pieces back into the sack, content to ignore the looming hunter.

x

[Raif]

Off in the distance, Raif could still hear the faint sound of hooves thundering across the land, groans of panic echoing off the white capped titans of Kalea surrounding them on all sides. If he left the girl now to her own devices, perhaps the hunter could finish what he’d started before day yawned quietly into night. A bounty the size of that bull he’d marked with an arrow would gain him some recognition back home, but also help stymie the shortages Wind Reach would likely incur during the winter season. Seeing as how she wasn’t in any real danger, Raif could easily have turned to leave without feeling an ounce of regret. Even if her raucous behavior drew the attention of a few unwanted predators. But just as the deep snows were an inevitability, so too was the Inartan way of speaking contentiously with one another.

I don’t owe you anything, Zith Petcher.

The words froze Raif where he stood, bow in hand, though he never thought to raise it. Not against a woman, at least. And especially not one so enfeebled by what appeared to be her own artifice. It was that clumsiness which gave the retort less bite, and placed a dry, mocking smirk upon the hunter’s lips. Killing her here would prove nothing, and leave a rotting corpse to lie that Zibas would find no pleasure in scooping up to deliver to The Tomb of The Fallen. It was more work than he wished to contend with, and left a gentle, arrogant sigh to slip past his pursed lips.

Perhaps you should just aim better next time.

“Perhaps you should learn to shut your mouth when in The Unforgiving, wretch.” His face visibly darkened and his words became a low, chirping growl. “This isn’t like back home, in case you hadn‘t noticed.”

The untamed wilds were not just filled with the sort of farfetched tales one might tell as a bedtime story to misbehaving Yasi. They were real, palpable, and often saw those that returned from them changed. And not for the better. The horrors described to him, the horrors he’d seen with his very own eyes, were not just legend. They had Raif wondering at that very moment if a few of those incidents had not begun exactly as things were transpiring now…with a loud-mouthed girl, and a man who sought nothing more than to shutter her cries by way of caution. As one might expect with any of their kind, however, the girl refused to back down to reason.

Raif’s eyes quickly shot to the other’s hands when she advanced, pulling one foot behind the other instinctively as though he might receive a charge. Being in these wilds had taught him to constantly be on his guard, regardless of what life drew breath in his presence. But upon seeing her empty handed, the hunter eased in his stance and allowed her to approach without drawing his bow up abruptly to slap her in the face with one of its ends. That did not mean the thought was any less enticing.

Her finger against his chest set his jaw firmly in place, lips peeling back to reveal the tips of white teeth pressed neatly together. She would have received the back of his hand immediately if his concern hadn’t been divided between her and the area surrounding them. Despite his growing intensity, Raif still maintained enough presence of mind to keep an eye on what lay around them. Deigning that she was better than him, however, would prove to be a mistake.

As she stepped back to retrieve her equipment, Raif lifted his bow into both hands and slid the bottom half between the girl’s striding calves before another step was taken, edging the hooked end around to the front of her ankle where it would undoubtedly give her some trouble in pressing further. Whether she could maintain her balance was entirely up to her, but from what the hunter had seen, agility was not the woman’s forte. From the depths of his throat, his mocking tone ran like shards of glass against gravel. “I’d have you warm mine, if I did not think you’d talk throughout the ordeal.”

[Aidara]

No, she most certainly was not expecting the hunters weapon to be thrust between her feet. The reaction he was hoping for was immediate, as the toe of her boot caught in the small space between the string and the wood near the top. Though her foot didn’t remain stuck, the resistance was enough to knock her off balance and send her tumbling forward, her footsteps quicker and closer together in order to try and compensate for the off-kilter forward motion and direct path she was now taking back towards the dirt.

Biting hard on her lip, Addy had enough time between the trip and the fall to realize that, not only had this been on purpose, but he wanted to see her squeal, trip, and fall. If she couldn’t prevent it all, two of three would have to do. The yelp was quickly swallowed and turned into a grunt as she turned the inevitable into her advantage; there was no way she was going to prevent herself from biting the dust, but she had managed to garner some acrobatic skill over the years, thanks to her various… activities.

Tucking her left shoulder down lower, Addy angled her fall so she landed here, using the momentum of her fall to send the rest of her back up and over in a forward roll, her hands shooting out with her palms down and fingers splayed to stop and brace the impact. The tricky part was getting her feet up underneath herself, but even that was managed without missing a beat and hardly a wobble.

Standing, and doing her best to keep the surprise from her face at her own rather graceful little flip, Addy brushed her hands off on the legs of her pants, carefully inspected her nails (for effect, of course) and straightened her vinati and bryda before, finally, raising her gaze to her assaulter. Tucking one hand behind her and laying the other across her stomach, Addy bowed as elegantly as she knew how. “All without even stretching.” Her face was flushed, but her tone was even. She hadn’t missed his last comment while she tumbled, and it had burned all of the good humor right out of her.

“And, normally, I’d take even half a compliment, but seeing as how you’d probably petch the first decent looking Dek to glance your way…” Addy had begun to re-gather the belongings that had tumbled from her hands when she fell, using the motions to hide the adrenaline-induced shaking of her hands that the fall had caused. “I rather take it as an insult.”

The last bit was said so nonchalantly that the little woman didn’t seem offended in the slightest. However, when she stood, there was a bright gleam in those green eyes that hadn’t been there before. Not only had he insulted her, but also he embarrassed and tripped her. It was not often that Addy felt a part of the Endal caste, but it was also not often that she was so openly disrespected. By someone who didn’t even know who she was, some nameless, worthless hunter that couldn’t barely take a kill for a little distraction.

Whether he saw it coming or not, Addy didn’t care. From the moment she straightened and saw the arrogant smirk on the man’s face, she heard more than felt the blood pounding in her ears, her vision narrowing to tunnels that saw only him. The rage that thundered through her veins masked the sound of her own feet on the ground as she stalked towards him, not even aware that she was doing so until she wound up, clenched a fist, and aimed the punch directly at his nose.

Addy may have had to jump a bit to reach her target, but the effect was the same. She. Was. Pissed.

x

[Raif]

The woman he‘d first encountered, tangled in a puddle of her own traps with scalp a disheveled mess of sable-crimson strands, quickly disappeared. This professional tumbler was someone else. It seemed only natural that a switch had been made, cleverly threaded into an elaborate design to thwart the hunter’s perception of reality. It was a ruse perhaps, a trick to bring him into the spider’s web. The Unforgiving was dangerous, but never had Raif felt deceived when he‘d dared to enter its depths. Only hunted, or waylaid by the elements. And never by his own kind.

Lips tightened such that not even air could pass through them, his eyes washed with a steely gaze whose only concern became the woman’s body. She had a dancer’s sort of grace about her that the Endal might have found alluring in any other circumstance. But out here in the wilds, it was as deadly as staring down the shaft of a barbed arrow being aimed at one’s heart. The time for fun and games had quickly drawn to an end. An occurrence that was more common than not among their kind.

Pulling his longbow back towards his side once her ankle had left its hooked end, Raif at first tensed, then relaxed entirely. His senses may have been constricted, but each muscle felt as flexible as running water for the time being. The short and clipped words of the girl’s Nari tongue became little more than pieces of shattered glass to his ears. Only the fragments could be scrounged to give him the essence of what was said, devoid of emotion or veiled intentions.

For her diminutive size, the girl was surprisingly quick, turning towards Raif before he had much time to even register what was transpiring in his poised state. The first thing he recognized was the anger building around her countenance, like a gossamer curtain being pulled inward at its center by the weight of a hurled stone. Her eyes, much more vivid than his own, were filled with an emotion he’d become all too fond of in the past few seasons. It was a glazed sort of rage. One that did not need accentuation from the brow or cheeks to determine its convention.

Raif might have smiled by now had this all been taking place within the Mount, pleased to have garnered the desired effect of his actions. But out here, that sort of wrath could be dangerous. People had been killed for less because of that look, and the Endal had no interest in marking himself among that number.

Her swinging balled up fist was the next thing to be noticed, his own fingers unraveling from the bow’s shaft as it would clatter moments later against the compacted earth. Bringing the disarmed hand up, it fell just a fraction of a step behind the girl’s punch, unable to deflect it away from an impending collision with his nose. All Raif could do at this point was turn his head in vain attempt, lifting his chin up to pull his nose as far away as possible.

The sound of bone crushing against bone flooded the Endal’s ears, his stubbled chin taking the percussive force of the punch. Teeth which had not been closed mashed sorely together, stealing a sliver of flesh away from the tip of his tongue. Woeful pain filled Raif’s entire jaw line, coursing past his cheeks and burrowing into his sinuses. The sweet tang of blood was already beginning to fill his mouth, warm resin spilling across his pearly whites as his lips unfurled into a crooked grimace. The caution in his eyes from before blanched into cold nothing. Little was left now but a matching glare.

Recoiling from the blow, Raif could feel that his entire body had taken great pains in stretching itself all the way up to his full height just to avoid being hit directly. But like a spring that had been pulled at one end, to the point just before losing its shape, the Endal’s body snapped back down, knees and back bending as he leaned the front of his left shoulder in towards the girl’s sternum. Allowing his lower limbs to be the driving force behind the intended impact, his leg muscles constricted briefly against the black fabric of his bryda before exploding forward off the unsteady toes of his booted feet.

Long arms rose to each side as if at any moment the Endal might attempt to take to the air, but their intended purpose was to corral the girl within them. Even so, Raif unwittingly left himself vulnerable to any number of areas, his sole focus on spearing the girl and taking her to the ground with him. Such tactics hardly became him, but time was already becoming rather desperate.

[Aidara]

Shock registered before pain when that little fist connected with the hunter’s rather unyielding jaw, the jab almost left incomplete as Addy let her disbelief steal most of the power from behind her swing; instead, she stood there for almost a full tick with her mouth simply hanging open before spurring herself back into action and putting a little pressure behind the fingers that laid across his jaw.

Then the pain came, coupled with the muffled grunt of the man and the crackling of leaves and twigs as his footing shifted to compensate for the semi-dodge he had managed to pull off; it was true that Addy had been aiming for his nose, but that she had hit anywhere on his face at all sent a thrill of adrenaline jolting through her system. Her hand throbbed from the impact, but the jittering of what seemed like every muscle in her body was a suitable distraction, but not before a pitiful little yelp managed to escape. “Owww!”

Addy would have been suited to just stand and stare as she watched her victim stumble around and recover from such a massive blow (because if it hurt her that bad, it had to have hurt him), but that was not the case. Having never really been in a fight before, the little healer was not prepared for the man to rebound so quickly, and Addy swiftly learned that it was all about priorities.

It was his eyes that had entranced her so, for she could read almost everything there despite the neutral sort of determination that had been plastered across his face. She had seen the flash of triumph in his expression when she had rushed in for the job, the blank look afterwards that almost screamed of surprise when he failed to dodge and she succeeded to connect. There was a mystery sparkle in his gaze now as he recoiled from the blow, a glitter that could have been enjoyment- oh.

What she had failed to note was probably the only important part: the twisting of his body that sent his shoulder directly into her chest, connecting hard with the bone right between her breasts and succinctly knocking all the breath from her lungs and setting her back a few staggered steps. A hand went instinctively to her chest, where she gripped at the skin beneath her vinati while she gasped, as if it would help her breathe better, the other hand out in front of her, arm locked straight in the sort of gesture that seemed to beg “Please, stop.”

Unable to work around the lightheadedness that accompanied the winding she received, Addy was also unable to avoid the grab me made for her, though she tried; A twist of her own frame did little but make it so that when his arms did envelop, he was holding her sideways, rather than his chest against hers. “Let me… go…. Petcher!” Gasping out the handful of words, Addy weakly struggled against her captivity, wriggling so that her arms were free of his own before he was able to pin her tightly.

Missing out on her opportunity to use any of the many openings he had left for her against him, Addy instead took the momentary pause in the struggle to regain her breath. As soon as she did, tactics she had used as a Yasi came flooding back to her. Many a time, the larger boys had cornered both Aidara and Sairque, taunting them into a fight. As children, the twins had been nothing but trouble and had found themselves on the wrong end of many beatings. Devoid of any actual fighting technique to fall back on, it was this instinct that set Addy to clawing at the arms that held her tight, little fingers digging into the sensitive flesh between the fingers of his hands while her body writhed and squirmed against him; sexual in any other setting, this was more like trying to hold onto a wild cat than anything else.

“If you let me go, I promise I won’t sic my Eagle on you!” No, that wasn’t very intimidating. This was her fight now, and Sira had no part in it. Addy would never be taken seriously for an Endal if anyone found out she couldn’t fight her own battles at least some of the time. So she tried again. “I will go easy on you if you just… put… me…. Down!” Much… better?

x

[Raif]

Previous suspicions were slowly coming to life as the woman’s voice seemed to fill the valley in its shrill plea. Or perhaps that was just the impression Raif received after being so accustomed to its pervading silence. He’d almost have taken a romp in the aerie with her over what she was doing to them now…almost.

It felt as though any predator within a mile would be drawn to her high pitched warbling, Inartan flesh considered a delicacy in some beastly circles. But locked as they were, the pair would likely never see an attack coming from any direction. Raif needed a set of eyes to watch out for them, and very few were better than that of a Wind Eagle’s.

Zibassssmmf!… I need you…to keep an…ugh!…eye out around me!

Struggling within his grasp like a wild boar that refused to be hogtied, the girl made Raif’s telepathic connection to his friend fragmented at best. But the strange tickling sensation across his scalp let him know that the giant raptor had heard him, and wanted sorely to intervene.

Raif? Everything all right? Need something killed?

The bird’s voice was what his rider equated to that of a growl, which was never far from normal even when the Endal was not under duress. But Zibas was hard pressed to anger unlike Raif, which led his red headed friend to believe that it was no more than an edge he had retained since his abnormal upbringing. Even now, images from that day flooded back to him unbidden.

Just fine! And not yet…

”Yowch! You bitch!” Raif’s eyes dimmed to mere slits of seething anger, her fingers raking the vulnerable skin between his fingers. Scraped raw, he tore the wounded right hand away and balled it up into a fist instead. With his grasp on her limited to what strength was in his left arm and slipping fast, he threw a quick staccato of balled punches towards the woman’s back before his grasp on her was fully relinquished.

His aim, however, left much to be desired. Given his awkward positioning already, some of the strikes would fall upon the woman’s nice. firm. ass.

The Endal swallowed the blood pooling in his mouth.

[Aidara]

“Just… wait…” A tiny foot flailed towards one unprotected knee, “…until…” while a pitiful blow was aimed at the elbow of the arm encircling her waist, smacking against bone rather than the intended crook. “I get free you filthy…” Spitting like an angry cat, Addy rather resembled a squirming Yasi in Raif’s arms; anyone who had the misfortune of stumbling upon this scene would surely be in for a treat or perhaps simply turn, run, and alert the Valintar for child abuse.

Sira, I need you to come here and disembowel this petcher. It was a pointless attempt to reach her bondmate, the message painfully devoid of the usual crisp snap of attention that meant Sira had heard her. The angry growl that the little healer sent forth was more a result of pure frustration; she didn’t expect any help to come. He attacked me in the woods! I was just- “-WHAT THE PETCH!”

The words were spit out between yelps as Raif started wailing on her unprotected rear. Such an unexpected attack instantly stalled all of the fierce little redhead’s assaults as her tactic switched quickly from offence to defense. Instinct caused Addy to curl in on herself, her legs thrashing about until one hooked around his hip, the leverage allowing her to pull herself up and away from the onslaught.

Whether it was her pure, brute strength or the failing of Raif’s, Addy managed to wriggle free of his grasp at last. Many nights of adult themed acrobatics lent the little woman some sort of skill, allowing her to swing around and clamber around onto his back with little effort. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to hit a woman?” Panting heavily, Addy twisted a hank of his long, darkish-red hair in her fingers, a quick yank all she was able to manage before she lowered her lips towards the side of his neck. “Oh, that’s right. She was probably some dumb Dek whore your father just happened to fall on one drunken mistake of a night.”

Knowing that she would not only be unable to keep Raif at bay or maintain her hold on his head, Addy finished off her panted insult with a sharp nip to the soft, tender skin below his ear, keeping her grasp on his hair as she simply let go and fell to the ground behind him. Only in the event that his hair separated from his head would Raif remain upright, the little woman letting go and rolling to the side to avoid being crushed by the monster if, or when, he fell.

Practically spitting in anger, Addy regained her feet despite the distinct wobble to her posture; as riled as this man had managed to get her, she could only really push herself so far. Emotions were almost as much a drain on an individual than expenditures of energy, and this particular Inarta felt everything tenfold. “Who are you!” If Raif was able to regain control of himself quickly, Addy would be forced to back away as she spit the words until her back brushed against the rough bark of a nearby tree. Otherwise, she stood over him as her words dripped scorn. “Who the petch do you think you are? Once Sira finds out about this…”

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