A Day In The Life [Hania]

[Cayenne]

TS: Spring, 510 AV (Day TBD by Hania)

It was raining.

Rain was nothing unusual in Falyndar. It was something, in fact, that the Myrians embraced. The rain helped bring life, and with the rain, the jungle flourished. When the jungle flourished, so did everything that lived in it, from the bottom of the food chain to the top. As much as the Myrians considered themselves at the top of that food chain, each and every one of them knew that if they got arrogant about it, there were many, many creatures that would happily feast on them. To be on the top, one had to climb the bone heap, and while there was plenty of room at the top, there was never, ever enough room to sit down.

Hania had been out in the jungle for a few days - several, in fact. He had been assigned to a watch near Zinrah, keeping an eye out for those Goddess-damned reptilian encroachers. They couldn't enter Zinrah and flush them out once and for all, but they could keep them penned in, and keep them penned in, they did. The moment they left their pit, the Myrians were on them like stink on a warthog. In order to keep an eye on them, the Myrians kept watches, and Hania, most recently, had been on one. He knew the drill. He stayed until his relief showed up. Kifjah had been his replacement, and the seasoned scout had sent him back to Taloba after a quick exchange of reports and information to take back.

He was running low on supplies, though that was hardly ever a problem in Falyndar - their jungle home was bountiful in its harvest, and generous in sharing it. As he traveled, though, he had noticed a couple tracks. They looked like a decent size - maybe they belonged to a boar? He wasn't that far from their home city: if he killed a boar, he could likely cut from it and pack the rest of it home if he wanted. He had plenty of options. He could see where the track led. He could carry on without it, and trust in Caiyha to provide something else, which could certainly be a wiser choice - packing a fresh kill like that would let other predators know about him and what he was carrying, and he'd have less weight, especially if it was a big boar, to carry back with him.

[Hania]

There had always been something about the rain Han adored. It might have been the perfect temperature, just enough to cool someone off but not enough to chill one's skin into bumps and shivers. Or it could have been the way it made the forest smell lush and musty. It could have also, very possibly, been Makutsi herself. She had always been in his good favor, with her playful soul and straight forwardness, it was a switch in attitude compared to Myri.

It had been a long watch at Zinrah and not much had happened for him personally so needless to say the first droplets of rain pattering on the leaves around him were a welcome sound. The canvas tarp he used to make an impromptu rucksack was a slightly awkward addition to his usual effects, since it was only the third or fourth time he'd been out long enough to actually need it. The jungle always provided for him, or, as he looked at the ground, it could throw you one tough decision to make.

He knelt on one knee to study the tracks. With the rain it was impossible to tell exactly what it was that had passed by, or how fresh the trail might be. He looked up, in the direction of Taloba, then in the direction the animal had traveled. A little extra meat wouldn't go to waste in Taloba but it wouldn't be missed either. Still, with the rain he would be staying at his sister's house, some form of tithe would go a long way to easy any tensions as well. He sighed and adjusted the ropes wrapped around his shoulders he was using to carry the tarp and gear. It wouldn't be too far out of his way to at least follow the trail, not this close to home, so his spear was hefted once or twice and then he was gliding over the tracks of the mystery beast.

[Cayenne]

It was difficult to tell with the tracks, and the rain hadn't been of much help either. But the trees were - a lot more rain could have penetrated and saturated the soil of the jungle floor than it did, but the towering giants overhead held fast. The beast's tracks kept on, and seemed to stay at the same spacing and depth... all of which told Hania that if something else was on the critter, his quarry didn't notice it. And if it did... well, it wasn't worried.

That was never a comforting thought.

As he tracked the critter, it seemed that the tracks were fairly fresh, and his wild boar was definitely large enough that it didn't give a blind damn what was following it - he was finding broken scrub and busted branches everywhere along the boar's tracks. He could even hear it, popping and snapping the jungle as it rooted along, moving at a fairly crisp pace, its tusks gouging welts in the occasional tree trunk as it went.

Hania may have noticed something, though, and that was that the width of the swath cut by the boar was definitely a lot wider than the tracks indicated... and the gouging on the trunks was on both sides, at odd angles. But on the bright side, the beast was going towards Taloba. A good thing for him, but a fairly strange occurrence for a beast. Maybe it wanted to check the herding grounds and see if there was anything it could get there... sometimes, after all, the massive Jagara cattle didn't eat everything put out for them, or the boars looked for a kill in one of the calves. The hogs would eat whatever they could get, after all, and they were not picky.

[Hania]

This thing was vexing Hania to a rather high degree. The only animal he'd ever seen not care about who or what saw it was a crocodile, basking on a river bank. Even tigers flicked their ears around them constantly and they were among the best predators around. That what ever was leaving the road map in front of him was so careless gave him reason to wonder if he could bring the animal down himself. It obviously wasn't worried about a lone Myrian and some dinky spear, let alone anything else.

The trail the thing was leaving was so painfully obvious he didn't even need to pay attention to it, a child could have followed it. His strides grew longer, though he did try to keep them quiet. At the moment Han, as he saw it, had the advantage; coming up behind his prey unannounced. Nothing would make him happier than to bring a two hundred pound boar back to the city. Somehow he was getting the idea that what ever was ahead of him weighed a little more than two hundred pounds. One of the Myrian idioms flashed in his mind, everything can defend it's self, and everything can kill you. He had to see it to get an idea of how to kill it. Now that he could hear it, and smell it, he wouldn't be leaving it alive.

But he found it hard to contain himself and not blitz the prey's flank and take out one of it's legs, stopping it from fleeing; allowing him to finish it at his leisure. Something moved ahead of him. Hania took two long steps and then slid the rest of the way to the base of a large tree, leaves and twigs rustling as his thigh slid over them. He pressed himself flat against it's trunk, the spear was held vertically so it's tip wouldn't catch a ray of sunlight and give away his presence. Slowly, and ever so gingerly, Hania craned his head around the girth of the tree to get a glimpse at what would soon be his.

[Cayenne]

This was growing stranger by the minute. Everything could defend itself, and everything certainly would try against the myriad of predators, Myrian and otherwise, that roamed the jungle in what was an endless hunt and quest for survival. But nothing, not even the Myrians' tskannas that could brain most predators with a swing of their prehensile trunks, were so lackadaisical about their tracks. Carelessness was important when it came to a fight where the winner took it all... and the loser had the consolatory prize of a one-way trip to Dira.

As Hania looked around the tree, he found he was, as he had thought, tracking a boar. And the porcine monster looked like it weighed upwards of 300 pounds - it was enormous. Its dark hide, streaked with white stripes, was wet from the rain, but looked strong and sturdy - unmarked with scars. If he could kill it cleanly, the hide would certainly be useful - Myrians preferred to barter, after all, and a good, strong hide was worth its weight in those silly gold coins that outsiders sometimes brought with them. Something else might well draw his gaze, though, and give him a bit of a start... and that was the fact that it seemed to have two heads.

Two heads with separate necks were fused to the shoulders of the beast, and each head foraged independently - which might have accounted for its shuffling gait... as if it couldn't decide which way to go at what time, so it settled for strolling down the middle while the two heads, each armed with four tusks as long as his forearm that jutted out of its jaws, curved and rising almost up over its two snouts. It was still utterly oblivious as its tusks tore at the greenery as it rooted around, looking for something. Surely it should have heard him by now, even with the rainfall? Was this a trap in itself?

Only one way to find out.