Closed Pilgrimage, part II (Khida)

[Colt]

46th of spring
the late hours of the night

Thunder rolled in the distance. Or perhaps it was just a roaring grass bear. He didn’t know. His powers of cognition had ground to a halt hours ago, and, quite frankly, he didn’t care.

Three days they had been traveling, and his energy was completely gone. In its place was weariness; a deep ache that settled in his bones and dragged him down with every move he made. It was the journey’s threshold; in a day, he would learn to work in spite of it. In three, it would begin to fade, and in five it would be little more than a memory as exhaustion turned into endurance.

The stars were hidden by a thick veil of clouds. He had sent Slither to bed an hour earlier, taking the maintenance of the fire in his own hands. It wouldn’t do to have glassbeaks sneaking up on them during the night.

He held a wad of dried grass near the fire, careful to make them smolder without actually lighting. When smoke began to drift from within, the hunter stepped back and proceeded to wave it around liberally. If the smell of smoke was stronger than the smell of the group, beasts would opt to leave them be.

The world swam before him, and he had to stop often to remain aware of his surroundings. He was tired, very tired, but he needed to smoke their campsite. Safety came first, no matter how desperately he needed sleep.

He hit a pole of some sort and heard something fall to the ground. The hunter shook his head with an irritated snarl in an attempt to clear it, at least enough for him to see what he was collided with. He… he had run into the travois, it seemed, and something had been knocked to the ground.

He tossed the remainder of the grass into the fire’s embers, where they flared brightly before dying. He needed no more smoke tonight. He circled the travois until he caught sight of a dark lump on the ground; his woodcarving bag?

A satisfied groan erupted from his chest as he came to kneel by the leather bag. It had bee hours since he had last sat down. The stiff cramps in his thighs eased, and before he knew what he was doing the hunter had shifted until he was actually sitting on the dirt. In an instant, the pain of weariness vanished from his calves and abdomen.

This was a bad idea, truly. He needed to get up before he fell asleep outside.

Already the numb tingling crawled through his body, begging him to stay exactly where he was. Just for a little while.

No. He needed to get up and move.

But he wasn’t going to stay out all night. Just a few moments longer couldn’t hurt, could it?

But…

It wouldn’t be long, he promised himself.

Well, he supposed he could stay here just a bit longer. That wouldn’t kill him.

Just a bit.

Not long at all.

Just…

… a…

… little…

[Khida]

There were no trees just here, and so night found Khida roosting atop one of the two tents -- the hunter's own tent, of course, her talons comfortably gripping the apex of its main pole. Though she did not now sleep, awakened by the sounds of the man stumbling around the camp with less than his usual grace, or perhaps by the rumble in the distance, or -- well, truth be told, she really wasn't sure. But in the dim light provided by the fire, it was the hunter's motion which caught and held her attention. He paced around the circuit of the camp, waving a smoky smoldering thing whose output annoyed even the peregrine's nostrils, though she was rather inured to fire itself... so long as it were normal fire, at least. But saying he paced around the camp was rather like saying a three-legged rabbit bounded through the grass: it badly glossed over the actuality. He stopped, and started again, and swayed, and stopped, and behaved in all manner of fashion that set the Kelvic falcon on edge. She couldn't miss the way he crashed into the travois where it sat upon the ground, as much for the noise as the aberrant motion where, at this time of night, no motion should be. But then he turned away, tossing the smoky bundle into the fire where it crackled and burned away. Khida expected he would then make his way towards the tent, which would be acceptable in her mind, but his vaguely limned profile didn't move in that direction. He paced around, then bent, and then lowered down until he had no firelit profile her eyes could distinguish at all. The falcon fidgeted on her perch, uneasy in the darkness, made more uneasy still by his odd behavior. She heard nothing, no rustling against earth or grass, no further crashes or other noises to suggest activity on his part. She saw nothing, no dim reflections of light from an upright human form. That wasn't right at all. It couldn't possibly be good, either. But... now what did she do? Though flying in the dark wasn't too bad, given sufficient altitude, Khida didn't much want to set foot on the ground at this dark hour. She continued to fidget, and fret, and he continued to remain conspicuously absent; and finally, as another rumble rolled across from the distant horizon, the Kelvic decided she could do nothing else. That sounded like it would bring rain, and soon. The peregrine drew upon her daylight recollections of the camp, remembering the shape of the tent and considering whether it had things at its base. She was pretty certain the surrounding grasses were clear; and so she leapt up, then glided down, guided half by recollection and half by the glow of firelight. Her extended talons sank into the grassy earth without mishap, much to Khida's relief, and she promptly shifted from falcon to human. Sadly, the light of her shift was gone too quickly for it to illumine the landscape further. So the woman made her way over to the travois by memory, by feel, and by the dim flickers of firelight she tried not to block with her own form -- her foot colliding with the hunter's sprawled-out form at about the same time her reaching hand landed upon part of the travois.

[Colt]

The wind tugged gently at his hair. Unlike the majority of the plains, its passage was not hindered by the tall grass; that started a few yards away, keeping a respectable distance from the tree under which he lay. Total darkness enshrouded the world around him, but the stars were bright above him and he did not fear it. Still, he couldn’t shake the awful feeling of suspense that hung around his shoulders. He needed something, something that was coming. It was not the dark he feared, no, it was more that he feared whatever great things was approaching… for he knew that it would dispel the dark, and the dark, the unknown, was where he was safe.

A heavy, wet drop landed on his forehead. He looked up to see what had happened, catching sight of the dark form above him. Through the black, for this one instant, the hunter’s eyes were perfectly fine, and he could clearly see the shape.

A man, swathed in a mottled gray cloak, was putting away the waterskin that he had splashed the hunter with. Though he could not see the man’s face, the dampened Drykas was suddenly touched by a strange feeling of… not quite familiarity, but a sense of security that made the impending even seem less daunting. With the man there, everything inexplicably felt less threatening.

Until, of course, the man kicked him in the side. For an instant, the stars vanished into cloud and thunder filled his ears, and the cloaked man was replaced by a smaller, but still humanoid body standing over him. But sleep was not quite ready to release him, and dragged him back down. The man chuckled.

Well, so much for that, he said, almost to himself. You sleep like a rock, boy.

[Khida]

Soon became now as the first scattered, sporadic drops of rain plunked against Khida's hair. She grimaced, but kept her regard on the man -- who seemed to turn towards her, possibly look up, but then, she couldn't be certain his eyes were open at all. Khida stepped carefully back, only half a pace, mindful of his near arm; then she crouched down by the hunter, bracing a hand against his shoulder. "You need to wake up," she said in Common, low and urgent. No reaction she could discern appeared forthcoming, and the woman frowned. Was it that he was too out of it to respond, or did he not understand the words? Though he spoke Common with the snake-man, he did it so rarely, she couldn't guess how much he actually knew. She pushed at his shoulder to try and shake him closer to awake. "Up," Khida asserted again, tucking her fingers behind his shoulder and exerting pressure -- not enough to even begin to lift him, but enough that an alert person would understand get up and likely follow the cue. Key word: alert. Whether he didn't understand or couldn't follow through -- or wouldn't, but that seemed unlikely -- Khida couldn't see enough detail to discern. The Kelvic sat back on her heels and hissed in frustration at the man, at the sky, at the odd bundle her withdrawing hand collided with unexpectedly. The rasp of air past bared teeth wasn't as satisfying as a proper raptor's hiss, but she felt a little better to express it anyway. She prodded idly at the bundle for a brief moment, while contemplating the man and the growing rain. It was his tools, she thought, the ones he almost always had in hand whenever he wasn't hunting. But her chiefest concern was his welfare, not that of his tools... and he couldn't sleep out in the wet, which seemed to be all he was good for right now. It went without saying that Khida couldn't lift his weight, and she couldn't imagine carrying such an unwieldy long-limbed form even without that obstacle. She could drag him, maybe, either by grabbing his feet and pulling, or maybe by his shoulders -- but that would be noisy, and messy, and they might run into a rock, and it would all be difficult. She'd try something else first. Kneeling down beside the hunter, Khida bent and draped his arm across her shoulders; still folded down, she worked her nearer arm under his shoulders in turn. The ground was cold underneath in an unpleasant way, and it wasn't even wet yet. When she felt she had a good hold, she attempted to haul his torso up, hoping in spite of all prior evidence that the she could still spur him into motion, even if groggy and stumbling. Bracing and directing him would even be fine... She just hoped he'd do something.

[Colt]

Why? the hunter demanded.

Because you’ve always slept like a damned rock. Sloppy, boy, dozing outside like this, he answered.

The prone Drykas snorted irritably; a retort came to him without thought, as if he’d parleyed with this man before. A hundred times. A thousand. He didn’t know. It didn’t occur to him to question it, though he felt a passing, ghostly sense of deja vu. I’m not asleep, old man. I don’t fall asleep outside; that’s idiocy.

Indeed, said the man dryly. In another moment he was kneeling, putting a hand on the hunter’s shoulder.

“You need to wake up.”

Now that was odd, indeed; he hadn’t expected to hear common from the cloaked man’s lips. Nor for it to sound so... feminine.

In another instant, the world changed again, and the stars were replaced by rainclouds. He let out a confused grumble as another drop splashed his neck. He was being dragged from the warm presence of the cloaked man, and in his place stood a... a woman?

And then she was gone, replaced by the dream.

Damn, boy, just how thick are you?

He rarely remembered his dreams, but the sporadic sliding of this one in particular felt... different. More jagged than it should be.

Not at all, thank you, the Drykas replied. Who are you?

The man woman shook his shoulder.

“Up,” she commanded.

Lightning flashed in the distance, and for a heartbeat she was illuminated.

She was small, with little muscle upon her bones. Not exactly waif-like so much as lean, corded tendon tensed as she pulled at his shoulder. Her face was sleek and sharp, and in the sudden flash of light he could see little of her hair and skin aside from the fact that the first was dark and the other light, but it was her vivid, honey-hued eyes that pierced the night, remaining in his vision even as sleep tried its best to slide over him, superimposing the cloaked man over her. The two images blended and melded, becoming neither one nor the other, but both. She settled onto her heels, as did he. The hunter shifted, vaguely aware that something was off. The wet, the thunder and lightning, that wasn’t supposed to be around him. His arm was moving, something was touching him, demanding that he move. He needed to get up.

Boy, that’s the first thing you’ve thought right tonight. The thunder-world vanished for one single, last moment, and it was the familiar stranger with the hunter’s arm around his shoulders, preparing the pull. So close, he caught a broken sight of a face--worn, tough, even a bit leathery, a bit of stubble--and then it slid back once and for all.

The woman pulled, and with a confused groan he left the world of the dream behind. He pulled against her, just enough to hoist himself to his knees. More thunder rolled, and the previous few drops had become many. Tonight would bring a downpour.

He wobbled, and gravity would have toppled him had he been alone. His limbs felt distant; he was aware of their existence and could move, but they felt like they were made of syrup and belonged to someone else. He rolled his head to face the sky and was treated to a significant splash of water; he was in the open. It was nighttime. And it was raining.

His thoughts were sluggish; he was barely capable of any kind of awareness, let alone processing. He just knew that right now, he needed to get somewhere dry. But his strength was not with him, and when he tried to get his feet under him he did little more than displace dampened dirt. He swayed widely, but seemed not to care or even notice that he was going nowhere; he was now at least some semblance of conscious, and had a rudimentary conception of what, exactly, was now needed.

[Khida]

He seemed to respond, to rouse, to become engaged in his own survival -- as she strained to pull his torso up, the arm draped over her own shoulders tensed and pulled back, the man struggling up to his knees. She hadn't expected him to pull quite so much, and swayed sideways with it, her feet shifting for greater stability against the grassy earth. They didn't fall over, though he wobbled in ways Khida didn't expect; if his arm hadn't been around her shoulders, he probably would've wound up back on the ground. She frowned at that, her lips pressing into a thin line, frustrated and concerned. Stupid human. Why couldn't he at least collapse inside the tent? Khida felt his hand grip tighter, and guessed he would boost himself to his feet; guessed rightly, at that, and rose with him as best she could. It proved to be a good thing she'd settled her feet earlier; he swayed even more alarmingly as they got further from the ground, and if her feet hadn't been planted they might have all fallen over. As it was, she braced against his weight; when he corrected, she swayed back the other way under the force of her own effort. In the time it took them to stabilize, the Kelvic made no attempt to move either her feet or his; trying before they were ready to go wouldn't get them to the tent any faster. No matter how much she wanted it to. As she waited for a good moment, Khida glanced towards the glow of the banked fire, taking her bearings on it. They would need to give the firepit a wide berth; she couldn't trust him not to fall over into it. It might even be best to take the slightly longer way around; it would add only a few steps, but she would be on the inside throughout, and could better counter if he swayed in. That would do. Another flash of light from the distance illuminated the campsite, and she fixed the front of the tent in her mind. The trick would be getting there. He seemed to steady at last, leaning heavily against her shoulder. She took a tentative step forward, then another, gentle constant pressure cuing him to do the same. "Come," Khida said, on the chance that he had and would respond to words; it was too dark for sign, and her hands otherwise occupied besides. The rain continued to increase, from sporadic drops to a steady sprinkle, but the earth had yet to become slippery. The water was cold against her skin, and she could feel it beginning to mat her hair down; his clothing was becoming gradually more damp around the arm she had across his back. But she wouldn't hurry. Patience won the hunter her quarry, and patience would get them safely to the tent, one... step... at... a... time...

[Colt]

Lightning split the horizon, thunder quick on its heels. The rain was growing thicker, plastering his hair to his head and trickling down his scalp like bugs on bare skin. He shivered and shook his head, raising one hand in an attempt to ward off the water, but the rain still continued to fall.

He shifted his arm and became suddenly aware that it was wrapped around something. Now more awake than he was asleep, the hunter turned and noted, with great surprise, that the woman he had dreamt of moments before was now standing here, with him, in the rain. In the middle of the Sea of Grass. Stark naked.

He blinked. She was still there when he opened his eyes. He blinked again. What…?

More lightning, this time much closer, and the following thunder shook the air violently. He decided that the confusion of the woman could wait; not only was he currently incapable of wrapping his mind around her existence, but he needed to get to shelter—and that was something he was fully able to understand.

He scanned the roiling darkness, disoriented as to where exactly he was. He felt that he was in his camp, but had no idea where—not until the woman began to angle in another direction. His hesitation was less than a heartbeat; she seemed to know where she wanted to go, at least, which was more than he could claim, and so he followed her willingly—despite the fact that her mere existence seemed to defy all logic of the Sea.

[Khida]

She felt rather than saw his head turn towards her, telegraphed in the way that motion pivoted his torso, his arm lifting just off her shoulders. Khida folded up her free arm to press her fingers against his, indicating he should leave it in place; she still wasn't sure how aware he actually was, and she was pretty sure the firepit lay not more than a couple of steps from her side. The Kelvic woman glanced towards him, considering the vague darkness of his form -- and the line of his profile, in the ephemeral illumination of a flash of lightning. The crack of thunder which followed made her flinch, and she hesitated in her forward motion. Their forward motion. Water plastered her hair against her skull and collected to run in annoying trickles down her face; Khida shook her head against it, though the action had very little effect. She reflected a moment, considering progress and distance, layout and orientation; his tent shouldn't be much farther to go. And indeed it wasn't, as she set her shoulders and continued forward, chivvying the hunter along with her. She found the tent by dint of stubbing a toe on a corner stake, a bare breath before another bolt of lightning helpfully cast light upon its silhouette. Khida hissed, leaning into the hunter as she held her foot up off the ground, waiting for the offended digit to subside in its complaint. Setting her foot back down, she slid his arm from her shoulders -- cautiously, keeping awareness of his posture at her side. No falling over, here at the end of the journey. "Here," Khida said, leaning forward with his hand in hers until they met the waterproofed wall of his tent. Hopefully he was aware enough to understand -- the presence of shelter, if not the words she spoke. "In," she went on to direct, casting a sharp glance towards him. Not that any expression was apt to be seen, in this darkness. A moment's pause, and then one more word, just to be clear of her opinion in the event he did understand: "Stupid."

[Colt]

He tried to raise his other arm against the rain, but the attempt was negated by the mysterious woman—she appeared determined to remain attached to him. Groggy, wet and confused beyond measure, he didn’t protest, nor did he even think of protesting; he simply followed obediently when she urged him to move.

The odd pair skirted the firepit—he hoped numbly that the rain wouldn’t slaughter it before morning—between a tent too large to be his and on towards another dark shape beyond the black sheet of rain. In an instant, his sense of location returned; he remembered falling asleep near what must have been the travois. They had just passed the firepit, meaning that the large tent was Slither’s and that the looming shape was his own. He knew where he was, now.

The woman’s stride suddenly stalled. She hissed, leaning into him in response to some unknown pain, and the hunter did not pull away; he felt her shifting weight, and instead shifted his own to match her. He tightened his grip around her shoulders, standing just a little straighter to give her support as she did whatever it was she was doing.

Moments passed and her foot returned to the ground; her posture evened once more, and he let his arm relax to what it had once been. Almost immediately she was sliding his arm from its resting place, taking his hand in hers to pull him to his tent.

“Here.” She drew his fingers to touch the waxed canvas. “In.”

He looked into her eyes, two amber orbs looming in the darkness and holding no room for debate. A sudden, faint warmth began to creep up his spine, and when he shivered it was not because of the rain. There was something he was not quite understanding…

His pause seemed to exasperate her, and so she decided to elaborate on exactly what she felt for him; “Stupid.” Her stare was bladelike, and he began to believe that to do as she said was most likely the best course of action. He could think later. He looked down.

Yes, ma’am, he signed, hurrying into his tent.

The sudden absence of rain was a welcome relief. He moved to a corner to wring the water from his hair to the ground; it wouldn’t do to get his bedroll wet. Next was his shirt, then his pants; neither were quite wet enough to be wrung, and so he draped them over the top of his blanket. If they hadn’t dried by morning, a few minutes in the sun should prove sufficient.

His hands stilled in the midst of smoothing out his shirt. The woman. For a single, piercing instant, he wondered if he had dreamt the entire thing. Dreamt waking up outside, dreamt her pulling him to his feet, to his tent.

No, wait. Had it? Hadn’t it? The cloth beneath his hands, it was damp with rain. It testified to his being outside, and the mud on his shoes meant he had walked somewhere. What in the world…?

He abandoned his clothes and stuck his head out of the tent. He clutched the door-flap around him, more out of cold than modesty, and looked into the night.

“Hello?” he croaked in ragged Common.

[Khida]

The man stared at her, stock-still, and she had a moment to wonder if he understood at all -- the words, the rain, the shelter before him. Then he gestured, a sign whose meaning Khida missed in the darkness, though she knew the fact of the motion. He ducked into the tent, and she stood outside as its flap fell closed behind him, momentarily forgetting the rain that washed down over her. He was safe inside, where the water could not chill him further; she was satisfied in having that accomplished. Thunder rumbled, more distant and dull than the earlier cracks. Khida had the thought that it was good she wore human skin, for once -- skin did not absorb water the way feathers would, if their waterproofing was surpassed. But human carried with it connotations of other things: clothes, tools, all that which a human needed for everyday life. His things. And because humans made everything more complicated -- did his things need shelter, too, for him to use them tomorrow and all the days after? Had he made them safe from the rain, before? Khida turned in a slow pivot outside the tent, seeing little in the murky rain, but rather thinking over the earlier evening's events. They had stopped here, unloaded the horses, hunted while the snake-man set up camp -- or had that been the day before? Maybe it was. She tried to remember difference, an occasion where he had done other than expected -- not put away the horse-leather, not moved the packs into a tent where they would be protected from curious animals. She couldn't think of any, so the Kelvic felt reasonably confident his things were under shelter as they should be. Except... he had had his tools out, hadn't he, before the sky had grown too dim and he had made his circuit of the camp. And she couldn't find a mental image of him putting them away, not for this day. Were the wood-tools safe against water? ...Could she assume they were, when they seemed to be of such importance to him, in hand almost whenever he was still for more than a few chimes? Khida concluded not. Huffing unhappily into the rain, she started away from the tent, back towards where she last remembered him with them -- not so far from where he'd collapsed, as it happened. She was several paces away when he stuck his head out, and wasn't sure exactly what word he croaked into the darkness; "Wait," she called back, before moving on whether or not he heard through the rain. Mud stuck to her feet, the earth cold and slick beneath her steps, but not as slick as it might be without the grasses to secure it in place. Khida strained her senses against the night, but came up with little as she retraced her steps. Her hand fell upon a travois pole half a breath before she would have run into it, illustrating how very easy it was to miss things in the black night -- but she had to try. If he needed those tools and didn't have them because she'd left them out... Keeping one hand on the travois frame, the woman searched with her feet, moving each in a slow arc around her before taking any step forward. It was only a few such questing paces before the side of her foot met leather, much to Khida's relief. She scooped up the damp bag into her arms and made her way across the camp one last time -- perhaps a bit too hasty in her relief, her feet skidding on a patch of mud. She managed to land on her hands and knees, one hand still clenched tightly on the bag of tools, then pushed herself back up and carried on. Finding the tent again, Khida worked her way to the door, then pushed the bundle in her arms towards the man. "Here. These should not be out." And neither should she -- to which the Kelvic could next attend, now that he was seen to.