Solo Same Acts, Different Ends

[Khida]

Summer 8, 513 AV throughout the day Summer's warmth soaked into the Sea of Grass, conveyed there by Syna's strong golden light. Even in the morning, with the sun just past the horizon and the atmosphere yet cool, the sun's heat was almost a tangible thing. The peregrine who soared through summer's blue, blue sky basked in it, relishing the contrast between the cool air she moved through and the vivid warmth at her back. Later in the season, she recalled, the difference would be much less marked, but she would enjoy it while it was present. Below her lay the curve of the earth clothed in tall, oddly fluid grass stalks, shimmering green and gold as the wind sent waves rolling across their expanse. The waves then broke against the weathered shapes of Drykas pavilions, but flowed undisturbed past the horses and cattle which grazed out beyond the bounds of the city. The falcon herself swerved to follow the border zone which was not quite outside the city, but not within it either, where the grasses were disturbed and flattened by Drykas activity and yet that activity was not so much to scare all creatures away. The bold, foolish, and desperate, she found, would hang around the fringes of the city where the flattened plants put more food within reach -- despite the proximity of many potential predators. As she glided overhead, Khida watched that transitional zone very closely, keen eyes alert for signs of brown fur, long ears, rounded curves alien to the surrounding straight lines of grasses reaching for the sky. The yearling hares were particularly attracted to the area -- or at least, she guessed those she'd seen before to be yearlings, still learning just how dangerous the great wide world could be. Ultimately, the falcon didn't much care what age the hares were, just that they stuck their noses out where she had a chance of getting at them...

[Khida]

Perseverance eventually led to opportunity, as the predator knew it to generally do. Khida canvassed the edges of the city for nearly a bell, moving away from the activities of the Drykas as she could to less disturbed areas. Her first glimpse of a hare was ephemeral, the creature quickly disappearing into the grasses where the falcon couldn't see it to dive. Whether it saw her and fled or merely ducked away by chance, she didn't know; in the end, it made little difference, and she continued on. She passed over near to a quarter of the city's perimeter before finding another. This second hare was bolder, less experienced -- or simply less lucky. The falcon circled around to put the ascending sun at her back; fortunately, it was yet low enough to cast her soaring shadow well away from her quarry. She tucked her wings in and fell towards the earth, swift and silent, predator and predator's shadow simultaneously converging upon the hare. It realized its danger only late in her approach, bolting suddenly aside; wings flared and talons extended, Khida swerved to follow, the residual momentum of her dive rapidly closing the distance between them. Her talons struck home in its hindquarters; not exactly the zone she had intended, but certainly not to be scoffed at either. The leporid shrieked an eerie, carrying cry as her weight bowled it over, pinning its forelegs and pressing its nose against the earth. Its hind legs jerked as if to propel it in another direction; Khida mantled her wings for stability and bent to bite at its neck. On her second try, her beak caught the hare's spine, dispatching it neatly and leaving only a motionless carcass in the falcon's grip. The falcon paused then, tilting her head to peer down at the brown-furred form. She unclenched her talons and walked up to its shoulders, trying not to pierce the pelt any more than she could avoid -- which wasn't much, especially not when Khida adjusted her grip several times at said shoulders before finding a hold she was quite happy with. When the carcass was secured to her satisfaction, she leapt upwards, wings clawing at the air in the effort to lift both herself and the hare's dead weight. The peregrine climbed only slowly upwards, partly because of her burden and partly because she moved laterally as well as vertically. Khida surveyed her surroundings as she ascended, turning inwards towards the city, considering the features it presented -- which was to say tents, tents, and more tents, with the occasional wagon here and there. Her instincts would have been happier with a cliff, or perhaps a tree, but none were to be found in Endrykas' current vicinity. Barring that, she wanted shade -- but that, too, was difficult to come by, without also being in reach of humans and their hunting beasts. She might have returned to the hunter's camp with her kill -- but just yet, she was not prepared to do so. As Khida pondered her quandary, a glint of light from the edge of her vision reminded the Kelvic of something else. There was a stream which cut its narrow way past the city's current location, flowing on towards river or lake or some other greater body of water in the distance. It had clearly shrunk in its bed with the decline of spring, but it was not yet dry... and might, she mused, serve her current purpose well. The falcon then made for the ribbon of water, descending towards the damp ground at its shore, a point only a short flight from the city yet hopefully far enough to go undisturbed for a few bells at least. Depositing the hare on its bank, she shifted to human, then stepped out into the water to examine the streambed. The water was shallow, running over a bed of rounded pebbles combined with thick silt that was not a texture she particularly liked to have underfoot. It would do, she thought; Khida dug a hole in the streambed, and cached the carcass there, putting stones back over it to keep the body from drifting away. To her human gaze, the ever-moving water and the pebbles together masked the carcass from view -- and the water would allow no scents through to entice hounds or hunting cats. It was, she thought, the best place dead meat could be left for a while. Satisfied, the Kelvic returned to falcon form and took to the air again.

[Khida]

Dawn was well behind her now, past by multiple bells; the hares and other small mammals would likely be seeking shelter in which to rest awhile -- and hide from daytime predators such as the falcon. Khida thought it unlikely she'd be able to find another at the encampment's edge. So now, she turned her flight away from the city, out where clumps of woolly cattle dotted the grasses. The peregrine tacked back and forth high above the plains, feathers gradually drying under sun and wind, seeking any flicker of motion which might be likely prey. Below her, the cattle scared up many small birds as they grazed their way across the landscape -- finches, sparrows, even the occasional jay darted up and away from inconsiderate hooves. Yet those were not what Khida needed; she let them disappear back into the grasses without more than a second glance, continuing on to another clump of livestock, and another after that, in the hopes that a different one would flush out something of use to her. When the falcon's cue finally came, it was by sound rather than sight. A concerned twitter, soft and fluting, directed Khida's attention towards a clump of canes arcing through the grass. The short-horned bovine which grazed there carried on in complete unconcern, while a dark-feathered shape twittered again in alarm and flapped out a short distance away. Its attention remained fixated on the cow, noises and hobble-winged behavior intended to draw the beast away... perhaps from a nest. The nest was no concern of the falcon's; but the pigeon which was practically asking for a predator to come after it... She acted in the moment of sighting it, arrowing down in a gray-blue streak. The pigeon, flustered by the cow's calm disregard for the ruckus it made, looked up only late -- but had the fortune to turn a attention-getting hop into sudden flight over the grass tops, twittering louder in even greater alarm. Khida turned her stoop into a swoop, and followed; the pigeon's red- and blue-touched plumage glinted in the light, drawing her on in the chase. She wasn't willing to give up now. The pigeon surged forward, powered by frantic wingbeats, driven by its will to live. It swerved suddenly to the side, hoping to lose its pursuer; behind, the falcon angled her tail to follow, keen eyes gauging the distance between and noting its gradual shrinking. Her talons reached forward without conscious direction; if she could just stay on her quarry's tail, she could catch it. Khida heard nothing but the wind rushing past her ears, the rustling of air against her own feathers. Her view narrowed to a single dark-feathered form and the grasses it hung just above, the latter no great obstacle to their swift motion but a sure impediment to vision. The pigeon seemed to realize that at about the same time as that thought drifted through the falcon's mind, barely recognized as such. It dove between stalks already beginning to show amber at the edges, hoping to find sanctuary in their cover. Doggedly, the peregrine followed. If this had been a simple hunt, a sating of her own hunger, she would have broken off; she had survived a little hunger before, and evening or the following day would provide other opportunities. She even had the luxury of begging from the hunter, if truly desperate. But Khida's objective this day was a desire, an idea, which had percolated in the back of her mind for long, long days past; her hunting now was a means to that desired end. An end not even for herself, as such... and with that desire driving her, she was not willing to fail. The pigeon dove down into the depths of the grasses until it ran out of space to dive through; foolish or desperate or blindly unthinking. Khida was right there on its tail, grasses parting around her, darkness before her -- and then a great fluff of feathers in her face, backwinging in abrupt panic. The falcon flared her wings in turn, startled that she had caught up even though she strived for that very thing; unprepared, she collided belly-first with its back instead of talon-first. The collision knocked the pigeon to the earth -- not that it had very far to fall, but it was left disoriented and out of sorts by the succession of impacts. Khida landed atop it, both of them in a graceless heap, neither quite sure what had just happened. The pigeon squirmed beneath her, weakly at first, then with more vigor as it realized the direness of its situation. If it had remained still, it might have gotten away; its struggles raised the falcon's guard, and her presence of mind. She snapped at it, first catching a wing-shoulder; snapped again and again, tearing at the side of the pigeon's neck until its flailing shuddered to a halt and the life dimmed from its eyes. Then Khida went on to just rest there a moment, listening to the surrounding grasses, checking that all of her own parts were still in working order.

[Khida]

When she felt ready to continue, the peregrine took up this carcass as she had the other, carrying it back to the stream. There, the Kelvic shifted, and paused to examine the pigeon's blood-matted feathers, the gaping wound in its neck. A completely graceless kill, a poor job... Normally, Khida was satisfied with any endeavor which succeeded, and gave no thought to performance -- but she could feel hunger beginning to chew at her insides, dawn's breakfast now behind her by long chimes and three changes of form... her mood was decidedly sour. More, she was very tempted just to tear into the pigeon here and now, regardless of her human skin's poor teeth and complete lack of claws... but she would not. She needed it for other ends. Holding that firmly in mind, Khida considered both the pigeon in her hands and the hare's carcass beneath the water. Humans valued the feathers and pelt as well as the meat -- but how much? And how much value did they put on the things Khida wanted? She had no clue... though the horse-brushes were as common among Drykas as sand in the desert. Surely they couldn't be valued that high. Surely. Uncertainty gnawed as pervasively as hunger, and Khida decided it was better to bring too much than too little. She would find one more kill, for all that Syna hung at the top of the sky and the strength of her light surely would send most creatures in search of shade. Huffing a discontented breath, Khida stashed the pigeon in the streambed beside the hare, gently laying stones atop it in the hopes of not breaking too many feathers. Another shift, and again the falcon took to the sky, firmly squishing her hunger back beneath a mental heel. The sun glared bright, and the earth radiated back heat which seemed to reach well into the air -- perhaps not least because it gave birth to small thermals. The updrafts were much welcomed by the falcon, even if Syna's midday intensity wasn't quite so. Her shadow trailed over the grasses below -- seemingly empty grasses, save for the occasional hop of a large insect or the flicker of a songbird's skulking flight. Khida found a knot of cattle and shadowed them as she had those before, hoping another groundbird might be disturbed into view. None emerged. Perhaps these cattle, and the others she switched to as the bells wore on and Syna began her journey down the far side of the sky, simply didn't disturb any nests. Or the parent birds were wiser, aware that the cattle would pay no attention to either themselves or the eggs. Tired, hungry, frustrated, Khida finally left them all behind, casting about for any other opportunity which might bring an end to this interminable task. A horse, in the distance; two horses, moving easily through the grasses. They moved at a speed neither slow nor hurried, but with the certainty of two happy to be headed home -- and at the direction of their riders to boot. The falcon's eyes picked out both riders, men unfamiliar to her, and the carcass of a smallish antelope secured behind one's seat. Gliding closer, she eyed that carcass hungrily, all too aware of the fresh meat waiting beneath its hide... yet also of the man who sat easily within arm's reach, and was not likely to appreciate if she dove down to feast on his kill. However much she wanted to. Khida had some hope, though, that the faster-moving horses might do better at scaring up a resting covey. She descended some distance and took up a position just behind the riders -- apparently much to their amusement, as they shaded their eyes and pointed upwards and called to one another. Despite being mounted, they too spoke as much with gesture as with sound -- and all of it so fluid and fluent that even if Khida had been paying attention, she would have understood nothing. As it was, she spared little regard for the riders, fixated on the grasses they traveled through, hoping for anything to move, any glimpse of a creature she could hunt. Patience. Patience. She wearied of being patient.

[Khida]

Patience. Hunger. Hungry, hungry, hungry... ...prey! A small darting shape wove between a horse's hooves, causing it to snort and stamp in surprise. The hunters gabbered at each other, but Khida ignored their excited tone; she wanted that prey-creature, whatever it was. Not until halfway through her pursuit did she place the furry form as another hare, at least in type, its long ears bobbing with each leap. By that time, she was already preparing to close, her thoughts casting ahead to the feel of flesh in her talons and warm blood on her tongue... ...only to shy off as a large, dark shape leaped up out of the grasses, making such raucous noise as would surely wake the dead. It missed her by not much at all, and continued to leap almost straight up as she fought for the safety of altitude, the beast clamoring all the while. Only when she had a good distance between her and it, and had come about for a better look, did Khida realize the creature was a hunting dog -- and the two Drykas were near to falling off their horses with laughter. The hare, inevitably, was nowhere to be seen. Hungry, tired, frustrated, and above all angry at the stupid dog which had spoiled her kill, the peregrine came around again, shrieking a high-pitched scold at the beast. Seeing only a plaything in the bird, it didn't truly realize its danger until she was harrying at its skull, keen talons catching one floppy ear and tearing ragged lines through to its edge. It yelped fearfully at the abrupt turning of tables, bit frantically at empty air, and ran for the supposed safety of the hunters with its tail between its legs. Seeing their dog now harassed instead of doing the harassing, the hunter pair sobered immediately. One of them scrabbled for the bow hanging from his yvas, but even in her ire, Khida didn't want to earn their animosity; she swerved off as the dog approached the horses. The second hunter, whose horse bore the antelope, waved away the weapon of the first, his gaze tracking the falcon as she climbed upwards once again. He looked down at the dog, then said something to his companion, words neither heard nor understood by the watching Kelvic. That other one regarded her for a long moment, then put his bow away and fussed with something on the far side of his mount. Then, he tossed a brownish, somewhat spiky-looking lump out in an easy underhand, the thing arcing up and well away from the hunter pair. The dog excitedly bounded out after it, but was forestalled by a sharp command and slunk back unhappily. Khida let the thrown thing hit the ground without so much as turning towards it, keeping her eyes on the dog and his masters. Those two held their mounts still for ticks, perhaps even chimes, staring up towards her while the dog sulked beside the horses' feet. In the end, there was another murmured exchange of words, and then they turned away, continuing on back to the city. The falcon watched them go, waiting until the distance had all but swallowed their silhouettes before descending to investigate the thing they'd left.

[Khida]

It was not visible from the sky, except as a small dimple in the tall grasses, stalks bent and broken in its landing. In their depths, Khida found the carcass of a large, brown-mottled grouse with spiky tailfeathers, its head turned at an unnatural angle. She examined it closely from several directions, wondering at the gift -- for she thought it had been meant so. Perhaps as an apology, for the dog's disruption of her hunt? Meant to placate, or merely distract, so she wouldn't continue attacking the dog? Did it matter? Not really. Khida had a third kill now, whether or not she'd killed it herself, and with it had completed the first part of her endeavor. Surely three would be enough. She was tired, and hungry, and the thought of doing anything more was exceedingly dismaying, stronger by far than her ignorance. They'd have to be enough. The falcon lugged the grouse back to the stream as well, landing wearily on its bank. Here she shifted, just one more time, and in human form dug out her two earlier caches. The cool water was rather pleasant on her arms, though the way it dripped from the fur and feathers was a bit concerning; Khida hoped, now much too late, that nothing in the water would have harmed either carcass. Fur and feathers got soaked often enough anyway, right? Closing her fingers securely about them all, Khida glanced up at Syna's place in the sky. With the days growing longer as they were, she thought she had a few bells yet before dusk. She was probably going to need them all. Then the Kelvic woman set her sights on the tents of Endrykas, and walked back towards the city... arms dripping water, her body entirely unclothed, and carrying fresh-killed carcasses in both hands. In the city, she knew pretty well where she was going, having picked out a market tent the day before. It wasn't the same, navigating the city on the ground as doing so above -- for one, it was so much slower -- but she had a general direction and a good idea which avenues would get her there. People stopped, and stared, and whispered at the sight she presented, but Khida didn't care as she hunted through the tents for the one she wanted. She just wanted to get there and have this done.

[Khida]

The merchant she set her sights on first gaped at the woman's unclothed form, then shut his mouth with a sharp snap as he considered her bold approach. She had no windmarks on her front, that was plain to see; an outsider, he concluded, even without seeing her back. Perhaps a slave, from her relatively short-cropped hair... Perhaps even touched in the head -- but he quickly decided not to say as much, under the intensity of her regard. On the other hand, she didn't seem to care one whit how steadily he regarded that unclothed form... "You trade, yes?" he said in Common, the words none too fluid but comprehensible enough. "Is good. Have what you need," he promised expansively. The merchant glanced away, though not so far as to take his eyes entirely off the woman, voicing a rapid flurry of Pavi to someone else. Khida plopped her burdens down on a corner of his table, glancing warily past the merchant but not spotting whomever else he addressed. The cloth draped over the table surface quickly began to wick water away from the sodden carcasses, but she didn't care. "I want to trade, yes," she affirmed, blunt and to the point -- which had the fortunate side effect of making it easier for the merchant to understand her. The merchant split his attention between her and something else, watchful as she browsed but leaving her in peace to do so. Khida quickly determined that what she wanted wasn't among the wares on display... or at least, not all of what she wanted. But there was a whole bin on the side past the brushes, and one of the leather sacks it contained might well have what she sought. So she rummaged through those, finding bags of tools and bags of herbs and bags of... Someone came up beside Khida, glimpsed from the corner of the Kelvic's eye, and she whirled abruptly around to see who it was. A woman, or a girl, younger in appearance than Khida herself; she held a bundle of cloth in her hands, and after an initial surprised flinch, shook it out to reveal a dress. She smiled at Khida, shyly hopeful. "The dress," the merchan tsaid from behind the table, "it is good. The best! My own cousin do make. Is pretty, yes? You like, yes?" Emboldened by his tone, the girl held her arms out further, inviting the customer to take the garment and examine it more closely. Khida scowled at both it and her. "No," she asserted, an utterly flat denial. "I do not want it." The girl looked towards the merchant, understanding the negation for what it was. The merchant made expansive gestures whose meanings Khida did not know how to read, though they were clearly in response to her intransigence. "But the sun!" he said to her at last. "It is bad this summer. All that pretty skin, it get red, burn. Better to cover, yes? Protect from stinging plant? Of cut? Not want to see pretty lady hurt. Trade dress, yes?" he insisted yet again. Amber eyes narrowed at him, a frustrated breath hissing out between her teeth; his persistence was not welcomed. "Trade dress, no!" Khida stated again, keeping it as simple and definite as possible. She turned to the girl. "Go away," she demanded of that one, and pointedly returned her attention to the bin... though never her back to the girl, harmless though she seemed. Over Khida's head, the merchant and the girl exchanged a look and a few fluttering signs. If the woman wouldn't take it, what more could they do? Impossible to save such a one from herself.

[Khida]

At last, Khida found a sack which gave forth tools she recognized -- a large brush, a metal hook-like thing. Soap, she recognized, but some of the other tools less so; still, they all clearly went together, and he would surely know their uses. "This," she said to the merchant, hauling it up out of the bin and pulling out a jumbled handful of contents so he could see her choice. "For these," Khida concluded, her other hand resting lightly atop the pile of small dead things. "A trade." Simple. Clear. So he couldn't possibly get confused and offer her anything else. The merchant looked at the carcasses, at the grooming tools she had chosen -- Such small things! So common, for her to be so insistent upon! Surely whoever kept this woman had their own? But then, that hypothetical person also let her run around unattended and utterly wild, without even clothing to her name. Poor thing. "No more?" he asked once more. "No dress? Maybe robe. You will have robe? Is good, to have clothes." "No dress," Khida iterated yet again. "No robe. No clothes." But of other things... she looked down at the pile of meat which she was just giving away. Well, trading, but the semantics didn't matter to her stomach when the end result was that she couldn’t eat it. "Food?" she said abruptly, looking back up at him, the word almost startled from her lips. Then she parsed the further connotations of his query: if she could have more from him, then what she'd offered was too much. "These are too much? I will keep the leftover." It took the merchant a moment to quite make sense of her answers... not because they were difficult to understand, but because the underlying context was so unexpected. This woman needed horse-brushes and food? Not to mention the clothes she so refused to take... He cast his gaze over her form again, this time seeing not so much a naked woman as a slender one, and tried not to look as horrified as he suddenly felt. If she kept part of the meat -- would she eat it raw, then? Poor, poor thing. "No, no, is fair trade," he assured, deftly swiping the carcasses from under her hand. They vanished from sight before she could even begin to snatch at them. "Food, make even, is good. You wait small time, yes?" Another string of Pavi to the still-attendant girl, then, and she ran off full-tilt; Khida watched her go with some small relief. From the corner of her eye, she saw the merchant duck, retrieving something from under the table. The something proved to be a basket, woven of grass, with a lid of the same make atop. He took out two leathery-seeming strips and handed one across the table. "Is good food. Small food, good for riding, good for hurry. Keep some always. You will like," he asserted confidently.

[Khida]

Khida took what he offered, noticing how he held the other back -- and how, after she'd started chewing through what proved to be pressed grains and nuts and fat, he cast a glance beyond her as if waiting for something. For whatever the girl had gone to get? ...would it be a robe, this time? He waited as she finished the strip, licking the residue from her fingers and hopefully eyeing the other one he still held. The merchant hesitated, then looked past her in a way which caused Khida to turn. There was the girl, coming back at a quick walk, but carrying nothing -- and a man behind her, walking straight and tall and proud, with the mien of some manner of official... Whatever the merchant was trying to sell her now -- if that's what he was up to; even the Kelvic had doubts on that score -- Khida knew she wanted no part of it. Having seen how quick the merchant's hands could be, she picked up the bag of tools; it wasn't an inconsiderable weight, but the Kelvic thought it wouldn't be too much. Taking a step back, she flung it up to land atop his tent. The entire structure gave a rustling shudder, and the merchant made a startled noise that didn't quite seem a word. He had only started to reach for her when the Kelvic shifted, human becoming falcon in a brief dance of light. He made definitely startled exclamations then, as the falcon flapped up to the canvas covering overhead, coming out from behind his table to stare wonderingly up at her. She looked briefly to the girl and the other man, whose steps had apparently slowed with their own surprise; good. They wouldn't pose her any trouble, then. Khida made sure she had a good grip on the sack and its contents, then labored upwards with it in her talons, orienting against the descending sun towards where she knew the hunter's camp to be. She just had to get there, and then this great travail would be over and done. net trade3 fresh small game carcasses (est. value 12 gm) for 1 animal groomer's toolkit (value 10 gm) and partial trail rations (est. value 1 sm, consumed)

[Elysium]

Khida

XP:
Hunting +4
Negotiation +2
Observation +3
Rhetoric +1
Flying +3

Lore:
Hunting: Finding Prey
Hunting: How to Store a Carcass
Flying: A Sudden Maneuver
Hunting: A Graceless Kill
Negotiation: Staunch Refusal

Notes: Lovely, as always!

and so, the journey continues...