Completed [Bronze Woods] The Brat And The Hunter (Nathaniel)

[Soshakuakamamushi]

The Viper was getting more and more nervous as the calm atmosphere beside the pond and the soft crackles of the campfire provided just the perfect atmosphere for romantic time. In her naked form with the drops of water still running down her body, Aka traced her fingers over his scar, perhaps lingering a tad too long if she only wanted to just feel the former wound. A sharp man experienced in the matters of romance could see the want reflected in the Viper's scarlet eyes. Dhani or human, a female in desire would still look similar in essence. Unfortunately, the human seemed too serious and polite, not saying Aka was confident herself, she was also hesitating, unsure of herself and afraid the man would reject her as a mere little girl.

"..." She decided to delay the matter by listening to Nathan's story, even she could see that rushing would kill the mood, she would be seen as a cheap whore with a young girl's look. The Viper couldn't really listen to his story as her mind was being taken over by carnal urges, especially with the human baring his toned chest to her. I'm really a washboard, am I? Heh... She mused to herself by thinking that even Nathan had more meat on his chest than her, it only resulted in self-pity so she pushed it off her mind.

"Mmmm... good thing you are alright." Seeing Nathan now, Aka became worried about his past-self, he had no Dhani keen senses, venom, or magic to defend himself. In her mind, it was somewhat a miracle he could survive the predator's attack. He seemed to have no luck with big cats, evident by them encountering a cougar just a few bells earlier. If she wasn't there... heck, if one of them was alone, they would most likely turn into cat food. Aka was relaxing around in her human form, completely unready for a cougar attack, Nathan was busy skinning a deer. His story made her understand about his seeming overly cautious attitude, his fear of predators was similar to her phobia of deep water. "Hehe, uhm... I think I'll call you 'Lucky Nate', how about it?" Aka didn't even care to act haughty or concern herself with pride of the Dhani race. Her tone was now sweet and slow, her breaths more deeper and slower.

"Eeeh, t-that'sss... becaussse I thought you were really dumb..." The Viper shyly scratched her head, a visible blush on her cheeks. The Viper wondered that living with sisters made him rather used to being in a female's presence, even naked ones. Siblings bathed with each other just fine, right? "Aha... ehe... y-you're welcome." He was truly an up-right man, patient too. Usually, people would belittle her for her behavior that just spoke 'all bark and no bite' or in her case 'all hisses and no strike'. It would usually end up with her throwing a small firebolt at the offender.

The Viper sat down beside the human, her bare form very close to the half-naked human. The red hue of the fire mixing nicely with her scarlet slits. "Oh... I'm sssorry." She felt bad for snarling at him for mentioning her parents earlier in the day, he had experience loss himself and that filled the Viper with pity and guilt. "I... I think your dad would be alright now, right? H-he got a good ssson after all..." Now she was explicitly praising him, her switch in demeanor couldn't take a more obvious turn.

If she was completely honest, Aka didn't really find the death of a father to be that depressing as the Dhani were all about the mothers and females, a truly matriarchal race. However, she could understand the difference in culture, it seemed humans regarded both mother and father to be of equal measure. What truly struck her was the death of Nathan's mother, he was all alone like her too, but at least he still had his siblings.

"N-no..." Aka forgot about personal space and scooted closer to Nathan to hug him from the front with both of her arms, her small body leaning forward to wrap her arms around his torso just below his armpits. Pressing her body close, she looked up to him, her scarlet eyes clearly showing guilt, guilty about her assuming him just to be an ordinary man with a happy family. Hunting was important to him, it was a way for him to feed his family while Aka mainly hunted to feed herself and to have fun. She also had a rather easy time with it as she was a Dhani, while he was a human. This opened her eyes on the difference in attitude towards hunting between herself and Nathan.

He didn't ask about her family in return, most likely because she snapped at him earlier, Aka felt obliged to share it with him as well. He asked about her reimancy instead, Aka sighed, she owed him at least an explanation on who she was. "It's called 'reimancy', a persssonal magic to control the elementsss. I have massstery over fire and earth, also lava. I learned it from my mentor, hisss name isss Galbern. He isss uh... a Nuit, undead. You know about them?" Her mind went to the walking corpse of a mage for a tick, before shrugging it off. Galbern would still be discussing boring world magic theories with whoever mage he associated himself with.

She didn't really want to ponder on why she was still hugging him. "Ssso about your quessstion back then... my uh... family. I wasss born in the Eyktol Desssert, far sssouth from her. One day I wasss jussst hunting out t-then when I got home, my Nessst wasss uhm... killed. T-they all died... b-but, I don't know why!" Aka realized she was getting worked up over her past again, it happened so long ago, it would not be healthy for her to keep remembering it. She stopped herself and hugged Nathan's body tighter, fully pressing her naked flat chest on his toned one.

"Na... than..." Her eyes kept the contact, Aka's small lips went slightly ajar as her eyes held a bubbling desire ready to erupt at a moment's notice. "What do you think of me?" She spoke slow, indirectly asking him if he found her to be attractive. "You know..." If Nathan didn't stop her, Aka would nuzzle her cheek on his shoulder, her breath getting ragged. "A Dhani... in human form meansss that she isss an adult... Nathan, I'm an adult. I don't look like a child, am I?" It was a rhetorical question for she knew she did look like a child, but she wanted for someone to say that she wasn't. The small Viper could feel her arousal coming to her, tingling sensation sparked from between her legs, the comfortable warmth of the fire only accentuated it.

"Hey... let me... pleassse let me..." She didn't continue verbally, instead heaving herself up to his eye-level and if the human didn't refuse, she would close her eyes, lean in, and kiss the human on the lips. It would start slow at first, but she would intensify the kiss by locking their lips further and inserting her tongue to his mouth.

If the human refused, Aka would immediately released herself from him, body trembling in utter embarrassment at feeling rejected.

[Nathaniel Deveraux]

Nathaniel was never very used to women of any age. Lea and Kat were the exceptions, but even they were capable of causing him tremendous embarrassment and were quite inclined to torment him over every little thing. He loved them both, but sometimes they made him want to scream. He really couldn't blame them; he never once told his sisters any stories about the difficulties of his day, or what he had to go through in order to feed his family. On days when he couldn't catch anything and they had to go hungry he always had a funny story to keep their minds off the fact that the stew pot was empty that night. Anything to keep their minds off their situation.

His sisters deserved a childhood. They deserved a life, and by the gods he was going to give it to them. But sometimes he found himself kneeling at the Temple of All Gods, praying to Yahal, wondering where he'd find the strength to go on. Because he didn't know what to do. And in this case he also didn't know what to do, but for an entirely different reason.

It was almost easier when Aka was hurling insults at him. He really didn't mind it; when the beasts of the wilds were trying to eat you on a daily basis, one learned quickly that pride was a fantastic way to get oneself messily killed. So he could have handled that. He actually found it rather amusing, and she certainly had the power to back it up with that impressive display of magic earlier.

But when Aka began apologizing, Nate truly had no understanding of what was happening, or what was triggering the change in her demeanor. Once again his meager interactions with women had either been purely professional or completely disastrous. If there had been anyone interested in him, Nate quite honestly would not have known. So her behavior, while to a more experienced man would have been glaringly obvious, to Nate was just bizarre. And she seemed to want to be physically closer to him for no reason he could discern.

"Lucky Nate, huh?" he echoed her with a slight smile. "That's rather nice..."

But not very accurate, he wanted to say. He was far from lucky. If he'd been lucky, his father would still be alive. If he were lucky, he'd have killed that deer with the first shot rather than had to chase it across half the Bronze Wood. If he had been lucky, his sisters would have had a better brother than a hunter who couldn't even bring home food half the time.

Nate was not sure why the girl was blushing. He'd been called a lot worse than 'stupid' by people a lot angrier than her. Granted they weren't also little girls who could turn into snakes and toss fireballs at things, but they were certainly a lot harsher in their criticism of him. Still, it was nice to see that she didn't seem to think he was stupid anymore. She mentioned that his father would be alright since had had a 'good son'. He knew Aka was trying to make him feel better with her praise. If only she knew...

But Nate chose not to react to her statement. No, this was a personal matter. Not even his sisters knew. How could he tell them? What could he tell them? "Oh yes, I killed our father!" Right. That would've gone over just great. No, this was a topic to be sealed away, locked deep inside himself. No one was to know what really happened that day. And maybe, if he kept the secret long enough, it would just wink out of existence, and it wouldn't burn his heart every time someone said he was a 'good' son his father would be proud of.

When the girl went over to hug him, and Nate wrapped one arm around her shoulders to give her a brotherly pat. He had to comfort his sisters for various things over the years and the girl seemed... upset? No, upset wasn't the word. He really didn't know what she wanted, but it seemed like the safe thing to do.

Reimancy was what Aka called it, her control over the elements. She'd been taught by some nuit named Galbern, whose name meant little to the hunter, but he assumed there must have been a reason the undead man had taught the girl, though he really couldn't fathom what that was. He merely nodded when she asked if he knew what Nuits were. He'd seen a few here and there; they were rare but not completely unheard of. He didn't know much about them other than they were the living dead, though. Rather like ghosts, he supposed. Or perhaps completely different - he had no idea.

And apparently Aka's entire 'nest', which was somewhere to the south in the Eyktol desert, was massacred. Nate couldn't stop the shiver that ran over his body when he heard this. He genuinely couldn't imagine what would happen if he had gone home one day and had found his parents and his sisters dead, the place where he lived on fire... it would have probably caused him to snap in some spectacular fashion. "I'm sorry..." was all he could think of to say to the girl. What else was there to say? yet those two words seemed so very... inadequate.

But it was her next words that took him completely off-guard. What did he think of her? "Well," he replied delicately. "I think you're a much nicer girl than you pretend to be. And I think you are much stronger than you think you are. I'm not sure I could have... my mind would have likely broken, if I had to experience what you experienced."

But Nate couldn't help noticing her flushed skin and ragged breathing. Was she coming down with something? His instincts as a medic wondered at this; he knew so little about Dhani physiology that he had no idea if she was coming down with a fever or what. Without any information it was too dangerous to make any sort of diagnosis, so he could only watch somewhat worriedly and hope that she did not get any worse.

When Aka asked him if she looked like a child, he decided to go down the safe route and not answer. The obvious answer was 'yes, of course', but even he knew that would be very rude to say. And he could not say 'no', because they both knew that would be a lie. So instead he just did not answer the question at all, which Aka either didn't notice or, more likely, chose to ignore.

"Hey... let me... pleassse let me..."

It was at that point that Nate placed his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her back slightly. While he was starting to get an inkling of what was happening it made almost zero sense to his mind. They had just met, and while he thought the fiery Dhani was a very nice girl, he did not see why she would want to do this. And this really wasn't the place to be doing this; despite the fire that didn't mean they could afford to simply be careless. Carelessness could be quite lethal. He'd seen it first-hand.

"Aka... I think we should probably put our clothes back on," Nate chided gently, trying to comfort the girl who had pulled away and was trembling in apparent embarrassment. "You're a very nice girl, I'm sure you'll find someone that will be great for you. But I sincerely doubt I'm that person."

In fact, Nate was quite sure he would not be that person for anyone. He just didn't have time for it; but this was not something he was liable to tell Aka. Or really anyone. And why should he? It wasn't relevant to anyone else. Besides, the likelihood anyone else would even be interested in him was practically nil anyway.

[Soshakuakamamushi]

She should have known, he would reject her. She should have realized she just didn't have the looks to attract a male, she bet Urisu and Svansan mated with her out of pity or just because they were Dhani too and in their mating season. The human before her was a testament on how most people would think of her, just a mere young girl. Even with the perfect atmosphere, she couldn't cut it. All of these made her feel like a failure as an adult female Dhani, female Dhani should ideally be the leader and dominant partner, playing the whims of a male with a simple look. She couldn't blame anyone but herself, she just jeopardized her relationship with the human because of her lust and need to 'prove' herself. She felt like a cheap whore, only driven by urges to mate with whoever male she could lay her hands on.

"I'm sssorry... I'm sssorry!!" She quickly detached herself from Nathan, scramming away from him like she was a diseased not wanting her affliction to spread. The naked Dhani female curled up on the ground near the fire, her clothes still wet, but in her state, she didn't even bother about modesty anymore. "I'm sssorry... p-pleassse don't hate me." Shame and guilt flooded her, she hugged her knees and let her tears flowed freely.

"A-alright... I underssstand, I... I undersstand!" She shook her head repeatedly, she knew Nathan didn't want to offend her and tried his best to comfort her. This only made her feel more and more pathetic. Was she so desperate and hungry for love to make an approach to a human she just bells ago? Driven by the mating season urges, her insecurities, and her longing for affection all accumulated in the Viper not thinking much before acting, she just let her lust cloud her mind. She couldn't say anything about 'mating season' to Nathan for it would offend him, the human could take it as him being a mere toy used to please her lust. She cried for a while, desperately trying to put herself together. Dhani pride? It didn't matter anymore, she just wanted to let our her feelings.

After their clothes had dried, Aka wanted to put it on, but something stopped her. This might be the last time they would meet, Aka was sure beneath Nathan's politeness, he was disgusted at her. She might as well show him the side of hers that disgusted most non-Dhanis, her Dhani form. "Nathan, I want to ssshow you sssomething." She dropped her clothes and faced him, her arms extended to her side to show him all of her bare body. "The Dhani race actually hasss three formsss. The human, the sssnake, and the..." She paused, would she really do this? The Viper swallowed her hesitation and plowed on "...Dhani form. It'sss where our name comesss from. I want to ssshow it to you, Nathan. It isss the leassst I can do. Just pleassse, promissse me you won't run away, okay? I won't hurt you."

The Dhani form was deemed the most monstrous form out of the three by other races. It was a large half-snake, half-human creature with a snake head, large scaly arms, and tail. A Viper's Dhani form had the venomous fangs, all of the snake senses, heat vision, agility, speed, and lightning strike with the versatility of two arms. She could also speak both in Common and in Snake-tongue. It was obviously the strongest and largest out of the three forms, but because of the aforementioned reasons, Aka seldom used it outside of her nest. Now, she planned to show it to a human. Hopefully Nathan would take it well and not shoot her with his arrows out of panic.

With a nod, Aka began her transformation. Her body grew larger as her legs fused into a tail, crimson scales with black spots spawned from her pale skin, and her hair receded back as her humanoid head transformed into a serpentine one. Thirty ticks later, a create that looked like the unholy child between a human and a serpent lay before the human. Aka's scales reflecting the fire and her scarlet slits showed worry. "Nathan..." She hissed in Common, the only form of hers which was larger and taller than Nathan, she span ten feet from the tip of her tail to end of her snout. "Thisss isss my Dhani form, sssome of my kin sssays that thisss isss the true form of Dhani." She slithered towards him, putting up her hands to show him she meant no harm.

"What do you think of me now, Nathan? Do I look like a monssster or am I ssstill the sssame black-haired girl you sssaw before?"

[Nathaniel Deveraux]

Really, it was a lose-lose situation as far as Nate could see. On some level, despite his general cluelessness, he had known what was going on. He was clueless, not dead, and despite the fact that Aka did have a less... developed body then he was used to, Nate still had warm blood pumping through his veins. There was only so far denial could take you.

The only comfort he could take was that he could maybe convince himself that, since she was Dhani, Aka was probably not interested in him due to their differences in species. But of course, her rapid backpedaling and apologizing instantly destroyed that theory. Nate was at a loss at this point, not really sure what to do. And it was happening all over again. Of course, the last time, it was a mug of ale being tossed in his face, but he just never seemed to have any luck with the ladies. Admittedly, he never really tried.

Aka had gone quiet after that. They sat in a rather tense silence while their clothing dried, and Nate really wondered if he'd hurt her with his rejection. It just... hadn't felt right. He didn't know why, but it just didn't seem like she exactly wanted him for the right reasons. To be completely honest, Nate likely would have reacted in exactly the same manner even if she had wanted him for the right reasons, and of course Nate knew nothing about the Dhani mating season. But still, he had a sense that something was a bit off about the whole situation. He'd only known her for a few bells; why would she react that way?

When the clothing dried, instead of putting them back on, Aka instead turned to him and said that she wanted to show him something. He still didn't trust his voice yet, so he just nodded. She mentioned that her race had actually three forms. Three? So there was the human form, which he was apparently now seeing, and the snake form which he'd seen earlier. But apparently there was a third, called the "Dhani" form.

Nate briefly wondered why, if that was the form their very name came from, the Dhani didn't spend more time in that form. Perhaps he was about to find out, since Aka had practically begged that he not run from her, and insisted she wouldn't hurt him. Nate just tried to smile encouragingly at her. In truth, if Aka had wanted to harm him she didn't have to shift into any form. She'd more than proven that her magic was quite sufficient to kill him a hundred times over if she truly wanted to. But she hadn't, so he trusted her.

"Sure, Aka. I promise," Nate said, and she began the transformation. Skin turned into scales, as her flesh turned the color of blood and night, black spots appearing over red scales similar to her snake form but she did not entirely turn into a snake. Her hair disappeared and her head elongated and turned serpentine, until after around thirty ticks Nate was looking at what looked to be a large, half-human half snake with arms but a long tail.

It was certainly unnerving, Nate had to admit. It wasn't something he'd ever seen before, and he had to confess if he didn't know this was still Aka inside he might have panicked and probably run. Certainly he would have if he'd first encountered her in this form, despite the fact that tried to insist internally that he wouldn't have.

But the fact was, this was Aka, the girl who'd defended him from the Cougar and was a good girl underneath all her spunk and small insults and big ego. Who lost her entire... nest, but still kept going despite it all. And she was clearly just as scared as he was, he could see it, even though her serpentine face and eyes made it difficult to tell at times it seemed to radiate from her.

She slithered toward him and despite himself he had to work to not take a step back. Her hands were raised to show that she meant no harm and it was clear what she was afraid of. That he'd see her as a monster. And she even said so. Nate sighed and shook his head slightly. He knew Aka would be the type of girl who would appreciate honesty.

"I... I won't deny your Dhani form is a bit shocking to someone who'd never seen it before," he confessed quietly. He winced a bit as he said it; that could have probably been worded better.

"But you are still the same girl I saw before," Nate insisted. It was true, to an extent. He had a natural human's reaction to a Dhani's true form; fear. It was pretty much instinctual. As much as Nate hated to admit it, he was instinctively afraid of Aka in this form, if only from a pure self-preservation standpoint. It was likely a gift from his human ancestors who instilled an automatic fear for creatures that looked like this, since they likely had the unfortunate habit of making a meal out of the unwary human.

But still, despite the automatic fear that he honestly could not control, Nate did know it was still Aka inside. And she'd saved his life, so she was tops in his book, at least.

"I'll admit, it would take me a bit of time to get used to seeing you in that form," Nate sighed. He really didn't want to lie to Aka. He wanted to tell her that no, it was fine, he saw her exactly the same, but they both knew that would be a lie and it would hurt the girl even more.

So he opted to tell her the truth. Yes, her Dhani form was unsettling. But he refused to describe it as monstrous, because quite frankly Nate had met some true monsters in his lifetime. And he knew from personal experience that some of the worst monsters in the world, were perfectly human. And they were by far the most frightening monsters of all.

"Thank you for showing me though. I know the effort that must have taken." That, at least, had been the unvarnished truth. For all the instinctual fear Nate had to overcome he knew she must have been terrified that he'd run from her, that he'd see her as some sort of monstrous beast out to eat him.

It would have been easy for her to simply hide this side of herself; she didn't have to show him. So he was grateful, though Nate did genuinely wonder how long he'd have to spend with Aka in this form before he'd actually become comfortable with it. Certainly a few chimes wasn't enough, because as much as he wanted to be, he still wasn't comfortable yet.

x

[Soshakuakamamushi]

The Viper didn't feel offended despite Nate's nervous look, usually humans ran away in fear or maybe try to kill her on sight upon seeing her Dhani form, but Nathan didn't run away, he stayed put for her. This took some guts or major trust in the human to stand before a Dhani in Dhani form, unarmed and in close quarters. "Hsss... s-ssso... I'm not ssscary?" She expected him to be honest, telling her the awful truth, but she also didn't mind if he told her comforting lies, telling her she was beautiful. As far as Aka concerned, only a fellow Dhani could see a Dhani form to be beautiful, she was a half-human half-snake creature with venomous fangs for Siku's sake. The man opted for the 'awful truth', he told her that her Dhani form looked unnerving. "I ssseee." She tried to keep her voice as casual as possible, but it was clear her tone was that of disappointment with a slight tinge betrayal.

"You are right though." Nathan spoke the truth, Dhani forms were indeed shocking, unnerving, scary, and conveyed all ranges of negative reactions from non-Dhani with the exception of Eypharians as far as she knew. The multi-armed race was used to having Viper Dhani slithering through their city. Even Aka could see if she met Nate in her Dhani form first, their encounter would go for the worse, with him reporting the Knights for a serpentine monster slithering near Syliras. Aka shuddered at that, would this kind man really do it? He most probably could... in his fear and panic. At least he saw her as the same black-haired girl inside. "T-thank you..." She wanted to hug him right then and there, but stopped herself. With him tethering on the edge of running away.

"Haha... no, you don't have to." Aka gave Nathan a small smile, she wouldn't force him to get used to her Dhani form, the Dhani closed her eyes as she began transforming back to her human form. Her body shrank as scales receded into pale skin, black hair growing from her head, her face turning from serpentine to humanoid. Thirty ticks later, the previous small girl with waist-length hair and scarlet slitted eyes replaced the Dhani creature. "Y-you're welcome." It did take a lot of her guts as she risked destroying their relationship by turning into a 'monster'. The Viper picked up her dry robes and put it on, tying it with her red sash. She also picked up the small ropes she used for tying her hair into their usual twitails style. "Alright... let'sss uh, go back?" She shyly approached him and wrapped her both of her hands to Nathan's left hand, clinging to him. This particular hunting session was interesting indeed, Nathan was no ordinary human... absolutely not. The Viper would keep clinging to the male human until they arrived back in Syliras.

OOCI think my post should wrap the thread up, no? You can either post it for grading or make a last reply then post it for grading, or you can PM me instead and I'll post it for grading!

It has been an awesome time thread with you, Nate!

[Accolade]

Soshakuakamamushi

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Tracking	+ 2 XP
Observation	+ 2 XP
Recimany	+ 2 XP
Hunting	+ 2 XP
Flirting	+ 1 XP
Seduction	+ 1 XP
Storytelling	+ 1 XP

Lores

•	Lore Earned
•	Nathaniel Deveraux: Human hunter
•	Crimson Coils: New nick name given by Nate
•	Nate is a gentlmen
•	Mating urges are too strong to fight

Notes :

Very interesting thread here with a lot going back and forth. Good job. Nate I will add your grade once you update your ledger.

The Sylir has spoken

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, please send me a PM and we can figure it out.